MERK Releases New Album 'Infinite Youth'
Today Merk shares his much anticipated second album Infinite Youth out now via Humblebrag Records.
Merk is the solo project of New Zealand songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Perkins, which began when Perkins recorded 2016’s Swordfish (winner of Best Debut at the Taite Music Prize).
On his new album Infinite Youth Merk examines the blurry line between adolescence and adulthood, and all the clarity and mess that accompanies that blurring. This is a record that thrives on a certain simplicity of rhythm, melody, and lyric, and is compelled by contrast: pop songs influenced by art music, an album about adulthood that reflects heavily on what it is to be young, and a sonic world that is both expansive and deeply intimate. “In the past it felt like I was hiding, but now I’m trying to wear my heart on my sleeve a little more”.
~ Listen/stream/buy 'Infinite Youth' HERE ~
Merk has an understated, commanding presence, a playful intensity, as well as an ability to simply let go. Lyrically, this album treads a line between earnest, vulnerable, and knowingly tongue in cheek: songs that began in irony mutated into sincerity, and vice versa.
This feeling, of a simplicity that opens up into a great depth, is refracted through every aspect of Infinite Youth: sonically, it was essential that this album leave behind the guitars that Perkinshad strummed incessantly while touring the world as a member of Tom Lark and Fazerdaze, in favour of a palette that captures time and space in its intimacy and immensity.
Merk credits producer and key collaborator Johan Carøe with opening up Infinite Youth’s space: “He was so good at seeing where I was hiding”. The album’s approach to balance and contour was inspired as much by the American minimalists and those who followed them (Steve Reich,Philip Glass, Arthur Russell), as it was by pop songs that transcend the basic, disregard the complex, and zero in on the simple: Infinite Youth seeks to find where ABBA, The Beach Boys, The Carpenters, the Japanese City Pop of the late 70s and 80s, and those American minimalists might meet.
An album that will capture you on first listen and then reward your every repetition, Infinite Youthreintroduces Merk and invites you, warmly, into his orbit.
In the lead up to the album's release Merk shared 'But She Loves You' on Tuesday. Along with a self made visualiser the song was premiered over on Under The Radar who described it as "the kind of track that fits perfectly as a despondent mood setter or as an irresistible dancefloor filler. Sometimes it could even be both."
Of the video Merk says:
“'But She Loves You’ is a cathartic dance song. This is the “pocket symphony” of the album. Its origins lay very much in the 60s pop ballad universe and after much experimenting it became the orchestral sad disco song it is now. The song is probably me at my most passionate and dramatic. To me it has an apocalyptic, mountain falling into the ocean level of heartbreak feelings. I hope this song provides people with an opportunity to dance away their sorrows.”
Merk is also set to embark on a headline tour of New Zealand. To celebrate the release of Infinite Youth Merk will be playing across five cities in May. Tickets are on sale now HERE.
May 1st - Jam Factory, Tauranga
May 15th - Cassette No. 9, Auckland
May 20th - Meow, Wellington
May 22nd - Loons Theatre, Christchurch
May 23rd - Dive, Dunedin
Infinite Youth is out now worldwide via Humblebrag Records. Buy the album HERE.