Berne has one goal: To save the world.
As California fires laden the sky with ash and irreparable damage is inflicted upon the Amazon rainforest, the London-based duo fight against climate change through environmental sustainability and Earth-pop songs. Heat, from their recent EP Stay, is their latest effort in this mission, but it takes their message one step further, mirroring the climate crisis itself. Moments of dreamospheric ease and ethereality are broken up by sobering solemnity. The warmth of a summer afternoon on a park bench becomes sweltering, melting the surroundings into a slow-mo desert mirage of guitar reverb and funeral-march drums.
This is the environment now: a cycle between daily life and destruction, respite followed by raging fires, one misplaced match away from “chemical catastrophe.” But only if we remain complicit, stay the same. Only if we fail to let Berne’s music light the way.