Brownout announced a new album, Berlin Sessions, set to arrive on March 6 via Fat Beats Records. Last week, the Austin-based funk-fusion outfit heralded the album announcement with the single “Somewhere To Go.”
For the new record, their first of original music in eight years, Brownout tapped Steve Berlin (hence the name) of Los Lobos to produce. Berlin Sessions is also the band’s first with lead singer Alex Marrero, who they collaborated with on their Black Sabbath tribute record, Brown Sabbath. The group recorded Berlin Sessions in Buda, Texas at guitarist Beto Martinez’s Lechehouse Music. With just one AC window unit that had to be turned off while recording, the sessions were literally hot. Martinez spoke about the experience in a statement:
The ideas came swift and there was much experimentation in recording techniques and instrument usage. Steve Berlin was very hands on with implementing new sounds and tones through effects or otherwise. I not only played on the record but recorded it at the same time. After placing mics and setting the recording gear, I had to play parts I had either just written or just learned all while watching meters and the tape machine to make sure it was all recording correctly with Steve Berlin sitting directly behind me. It was a nerve wracking and trying experience, yet a very fulfilling learning process.
Marrero also detailed his philosophy when writing the lyrics:
As I started writing lyrics for Berlin Sessions, I noticed there were more abstract yet universal themes. Writing in a way that doesn’t spell everything out directly. They can mean anything to anyone depending on what they need it to. Although seemingly ambiguous, all the songs ended up having a lyrical thread and thematic connection of stepping outside of your physical realm and connecting to a more universal energy. Fighting for your individuality. Healing and processing our human emotions, connections and turmoil with a sense of awareness that we are still connected to something outside of what we consider ‘physical reality.’ It’s about overcoming your problems, the cards you’ve been dealt in life or just enhancing your personal connections by acknowledging we cannot be defined strictly by how the material world has laid ‘reality’ out to us; especially not societal norms and expectations. There is a bigger truth we just keep forgetting to look at. I don’t mean religion, I mean energy.
Last week Brownout previewed the Berlin Sessions announcement with the single “Somewhere To Go.” Listen to it below:
