In the summer of 1991, I spent a few weeks in Eastern Europe, on an InterRail trip with a group of friends. Berlin was one of the last stops. I saw the divided city as it still was, with long sections of the wall standing, the death strip (“niemandsland”—no man’s land) clearly visible, and Potsdamer Platz more like a huge sand field.
Watching all the places I knew so well, from my long-standing obsession about the Cold War, was shocking. I vividly remember the bus trip through East Germany, to see Potsdam. During that holiday, I fell in love for the first time. I can easily recall how fascinated I was by observing the sun making my girlfriend’s red hair shine.

When I wrote the music of 'Berlin 91' around a decade ago (under the original working title 'Daphne Goes To Berlin'), I was using Reason rewired to Logic Studio. After laying down an initial drum and bass part, I picked up my acoustic guitar and recorded the whole verse structure, directly into Logic.

When Paolo and I rearranged the song during the first pre-production phase, we switched to a dreamy Stratocaster, with a long reverb and multiple delays. The newly recorded acoustic guitar became a drone-like strumming in the background. Several of the original sounds from Reason survived, like the initial riser, the synth popping up at every chord changes in the verse, the drum patterns. Even the bass line, though the rhythm section was later entirely re-recorded.