Take Berlin's Schoharie on its Tenth Anniversary

       Schoharie is Take Berlin's 2016 album, the sophomore effort from Brooklyn-based duo Yvonne Ambree and Jesse Barnes following their 2011 debut, Lionize. While none of the folksy, lush songs seem to be explicitly about the Schoharie Valley, it provided the inspiration for the project. "We spent many days writing our songs while looking over the Schoharie Creek with its beautiful nature and surroundings," writes Ambree in an email interview with The Mountain Eagle. "We named the record Schoharie because we wrote most of it in the Schoharie area and upstate New York." After the lo-fi Lionize (recorded on a cassette deck recovered from the streets of New York), the band wanted to dig deeper into their influences and expand their sonic textures beyond the two instruments and voices that made up that album. Ambree grew up in East Berlin, and the collapse of the Berlin Wall let hip-hop culture and music come flooding in, and Ambree became a huge fan. Far away in Cleveland, Jesse Barnes had also fallen in love with hip-hop, and the two were eager to incorporate that influence into their music. They turned to a shared favorite album, Digable Planets' 1994 hip-hop classic Blowout Comb, for inspiration, ultimately informing Schoharie's tone.

Schoharie draws on many influences beyond Digable Planets. The album's opening track, "Madeline," echoes Aimee Mann's work, and the electric guitar in "Tommy Gun" would be right at home in a David Lynch film. Ambree's vocals on "Piha" evoke 1970s South American pop and are mixed to sound like they're coming from a radio just as old. Ambree and Barnes also brought in musicians from bands they admired, including members of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and the Nigerian funk band William Onyeabor Atomic Bomb!, to fill out the sound. Now, on the album's tenth anniversary, Ambree, a busy artist who splits her time between Berlin and Brooklyn, holds it dear. "It's still a very special one to me."

Schoharie is available on most music streaming services.