June 30th, 2009
I’m going to present a modified version of the Grab Bag that hopefully will be more hospitable to the variety of listeners we have on this blog.
There is now a reduced version of 5 cds and 5 vinyl releases for $55, but you get to pick the releases you want from the list below. The original $99 for 11 cds and 8 vinyls still stands, and I’ll allow people to choose from this list as well for that. (Or you can just choose a random sampling from this list with a few items exempted or guaranteed.)
CDs:
md - between gaps (merck 008) cd
kristuit salu vs.morris nightingale - my mines i (merck 009) cd
various - half the battle (merck 011) cd
lackluster - showcase (merck 015) cd
various - miasmah (merck 018) cd
tiki obmar - seasons (merck 029) cd
lateduster - easy pieces (merck 030) cd
machine drum - bidnezz (merck 031) cd
ilkae - bovine rearrangement (merck 032) cd
blamstrain remixed - compilation (merck 035) cd
various - aurora 2 (merck 036) cd
malcom kipe - lit (merck 037) cd
tstewart - living exponentially (merck 038) cd
various - squadron 2 (merck 041) cd
proem - you shall have ever been (merck 042) 2xcd
40winks - sound puzzle (merck 046) cd
various - terminal (nrtcd4) cd
various - merck mix 3 (mix3) cd
Vinyl:
machine drum - urban biology (merck ub) 2×12″ Promo
various artists - dosage 2 (merck do2) 12″
deru - trying to remember sampler (merck du) 12″
ilkae - bring extra dragons (merck dr) 12″
malcom kipe - lit (merck lt) 2×12″
malcom kipe - breakspiracy theories vol. 2 (merck bt2) 12″
mr. projectile - sinking sampler (merck sg) 12″
kristuit salu - my mines i sampler (merck ks) 12″
lackluster - r u oho? (merck ru) 12″
lackluster - showcase sampler (merck sc) 12″
quench - punctuated sampler (merck ps) 12″
various - blamstrain remixed (merck re1) 12″
landau - thepicompromise sampler (merck tc) 12″
frank and bill - ma0x (merck fb) 7″
sense - 2 day dub (merck ar) 7″
the world on higher downs (plerck 00) 7″
Once again it includes shipping to your (domestic) doorstep and I’ll gladly extend this offer for International Fans too, though you will need to cover shipping costs to get these things across the ocean.
If you’d like to take me up on this offer, all you have to do is send an email to m3rck at m3rck dot net. Please include your mailing address in the initial mail.
thanks!
-Gabe
Posted in Music | 2 Comments »
June 23rd, 2009
Just had to share vocally that this is my favorite art/music magazine, by far. It makes Beautiful Decay look like a community college zine. Usually in any magazine or art show that I see around, there is like 1-2 artists work that I enjoy, and the rest are kinda interchangeable. BUT each Multilink issue is constantly good art/music. I always finish reading it and have about a dozen names I need to check out more. Admittedly I’m a bit biased towards them due to some connections, but seriously, I can’t get over the quality of the artists/photographers/illustrators/designers that they feature in there (that’s why I’m involved!). Usually people I’ve never heard of, and always amazing work.
Their site/blog has just been reinvigorated, and they got a webstore and book in the works too. As a side note for the Merck fans reading this, they did the most involved and detailed article on Merck ever. You can find it in issue #6. Also they have this badass flash based online pdf viewer for those of you who don’t want to leave your browser.
I highly recommend you check out the magazine if you have eyes, here.
Posted in Art, Culture, Music | 1 Comment »
June 16th, 2009
I still have a bit of Merck stock around here, and I still have appreciation for our loyal fan base who stuck with us over the years (and have continued to read the blog). So I have a deal to offer to spread the love around and benefit us all.
The Merck 19 for 99 Grab Bag. 11 cds and 8 vinyl releases from the Merck catalog, shipped to your (domestic) doorstep for the low price of $99.00. 11 cds alone would cost you $140+ on our mail-order. If for some reason you don’t have love for the round flat black things with the grooves in em, we can pull your 8 vinyl releases and replace them with 5 additional cds, bringing it to 16 discs for $99! (That’s only $6 a disc!) I’ll gladly extend this offer for International Fans too, though you will need to cover shipping costs to get these things across the ocean.
The releases will be a random selection of discs, our choice, and no duplicates. But don’t expect a bunch of old deadstock from 2002, we want you to get a good sampling of the label, so expect more new releases, with a few oldie but goodies for nostalgia’s sake. Expect an even distribution of albums/comps & styles (from Aurora 2 to Machinedrum to Proem), at least one 2xLP and don’t be surprised if I put more releases than I’ve promised or some rare bonus schwag. 
If you’d like to take me up on this offer, all you have to do is send $99.00 to m3rck at m3rck dot net on paypal, or send an email to that address to arrange any other details. For international buyers please drop a mail to arrange extra shipping costs.
This offer will continue until the end of the year, or whenever I run out of discs, or when I move out of Miami (which I’m hoping to do before the end of the year). So get in on it now to get the best variety of releases!
Thanks for considering! Hope to hear from ya. Peace.
-G
Posted in Music | 8 Comments »
June 15th, 2009
Tim Koch is now on Ghostly as ‘10:32′. Info here.
Machinedrum just put up a new podcast here of a lot of unreleased material, and hes supposedly working on a live megamix of his merck albums.
I’m working on an interview for this site Headphone Commute.
I’m also working on 2 new ambient mixes (they’re more like selections than mixes really). Hoping to get those done by the end of the month to share here.
Fans of Ilkae & Proswell will probably dig this new mp3 release from Carl Brown that came out last month on the Arcoplane label. I had the track Day After Day for the last year, been playing it a lot (sounds like a proper Ilkae/Proswell collabo).
Stay outta the sun!
-G
Posted in General, Music | 1 Comment »
May 21st, 2009
I’ve been pirating software since about 1993. Probably when I still had my first Hayes 2400 modem. I mostly went for games back then to give them a good preview before buying (well before the days when a “game demo” was common, or even pc gaming was common). Did a lot of BBSing, and saw the piracy revolution developing well before it hit the mainstream. Hell, I even made the welcome ANSI for the biggest Razor USHQ. Of course later into the 1990’s I got into downloading MP3’s of the obscure music I was hearing coming from far corners of the globe that I couldn’t get in our limited record store markets in Miami (bleep bloop anyone?).
So of course a couple years into Merck we started to get annoyed by the weak ass Scene releases of our CDs. Barely even listing the name ‘merck’ on the release, but smearing their crappy half-assed group name all across every damn file in the release. We decided to do our own scene release of the Lackluster, Adam Johnson, and Mix 2 cds, complete with a wickedly done .nfo file, and all the proper scene crap. Was entertaining for the few releases (gave up on it after that), I even remember some kind of ‘backlash’ from the scene about it, like we were somehow hurting them. Quite funny. Nonetheless, I spent several hours the other day trying to track down that original .nfo file on my hard drive, but unfortunately I think it may have gotten the chop some years back by accident. Fortunately my friend Shawn had one laying around, and Esa had a version of an Ascii done for us by reanimator from iCE for potential use as well. Here they are.
lackluster-showcase-cd-2003-merck.nfo
merck nfo by reanimator-iCE
Posted in Culture, Music | 2 Comments »
May 2nd, 2009
Got some good news to share with you all. Proem’s new ambient album will be hitting stores in 2 weeks, May 15th. In keeping with the times, hes been nice enough to put the entire thing on Last.fm for you all to enjoy. Head on over to his blog to check out a link (amongst other good proeminess). Here. I haven’t even had time to check it out myself yet, but we all know how the Proem rolls… so Enjoy!.
-G
PS. on an unrelated note, a brief explanation for the site slogan “The doorbell rings first at my house”. Its something that a good friend of mine wrote in a sketch book next to his graf piece in one of our many drunken late night black book and music listening sessions back in the 90’s. At the time we thought it was quite hilarious and genius, it of course doesn’t make much sense to anyone else. But that’s the way I like it… and I guess it somehow hints at the idea that I feel like I’m always into shit early. Either way, its an inside joke, but those are the best kind.
Posted in Downloadable, Music | 3 Comments »
April 23rd, 2009
So back in 1995 I started hearing what I would later find out was ‘atmospheric drum & bass’, on the one decent radio show we had down here (Underground Show, Friday nights on WVUM). At the time I couldn’t tell the difference between Carl Cox and Photek, but within a few weeks I started to catch on and it culminated with the purchase of Logical Progression, and soon after any other LTJ associated stuff I could find. Eventually I started to delve more into the harder and darker side of atmospheric stuff with Photek and the like. Then on a roadtrip in 1998 I was fortunate enough to stumble upon No U-Turn’s Torque (2xcd). Now quite frankly I don’t want to compare the two head to head, but Torque and Logical Progression are easily the most influential DnB cds ever. Torque blew me the fuck away, it was drum n bass meets my metal tendencies of pre-electronica days. The 2nd CD Ed Rush mix is easily one of the greatest DnB mixes ever. This cd showed me a whole different side of DnB that wasn’t jazzy, cheesy, or loungey. Instead it was forbodaing, in your face, dark, and grimey. From then on I gravitated more and more towards the dark and heavy stuff. Eventually moving into the heaviest shit at the time, stuff like Panacea, Twisted Anger, and my favorite DnB artist of all time Dom & Roland. I shunned most of the new jump-up and more pop sounding DnB crap that was coming out, even going so far as being quoted in a 200something issue of Xlr8r as saying “Dom & Roland is the only one doing anything interesting in DnB anymore.” or something like that.
Flash forward a few years, spring 2007, my good friend Rob/Multilink sends me a link to a mix by Marcus Intalex (runs the label Soul:r) from his Red Bull Music Academy radio show called Soulution radio. I loved it. It captured that early atmospheric sound, contemporized it, and even included nods and elements from the darker and harder stuff that I couldn’t get away from. Since then I’ve tracked down all the radio shows, and for the most part they are my favorite thing I’ve heard in the genre in years. Not all of them are slam dunks, but the quality control is top notch, not overtly promotional. He just plays shit he likes, if its on his label, so be it, if not then he mans up to say he wishes it was (reminds me of myself). He does a get bit chatty on the mic sometimes, but its generally more quaint than annoying. So, you can either check out the stream versions of the mixes over at www.rbmaradio.com, but their site is kinda trapped in 2003, so I recommend you grab the pirated mp3 grabs of them over at breaksblog.biz. Either way if you’re into contemporary DnB at all, and had any appreciation for the early 90’s stuff, you should definitely check these things out. Some highlights include: Dec. 05 & June/July 06 versions (pre-RBMA status), Vol. 3 (Clarendon into Rufige Kru, so perfect), the guest mix from Seba in Volume 4 (amazingly dark and awesome for someone I previously thought was weak), Volume 6 (first one I heard), Volume 9 (good variety of stuff), Volume 11 (lots of good new stuff). p.s. haven’t felt the last two shows that much, but deff grab Vol. 11.
Enjoy Massif!
Posted in Downloadable, Music | 7 Comments »
April 14th, 2009
Was meaning to post this earlier in 2009, but been busy with some stuff. So, since the year is closed out, and I’ve finally had a year’s worth of time to give new music a good listen its time to make a best of 2008 (and some earlier stuff that I didn’t hear until this year because I was busy previously) list. A bit all over the place, but a good taste of the random amount of stuff I end up listening to. All tracks are 2008 unless noted, in no particular order.
Machine Drum - Balshazzar (Johnny Cash Remix) - So insanely dope.
Mathew Jonson - Symphony For The Apocalypse (Wagon Repair)- Some great dark rolling techno, with hints of Blade Runner, and the classic Jonson style.
Little Dragon - Twice (Peacefrog 2007) - Beautiful track.
Machine Drum - Jelly Jelly (Normrex) - This should have come out in 2008, it still rocked my world last year either way…
Tycho - Adrift or The Daydream (Ghostly MP3) - I’m not sure which one of these I like better, but they’re both great. We debated about putting those on his Merck release, but they weren’t finished yet at the time. So he saved em for future stuff, and we focused on the previously released stuff.
Sascha Funke - Mango (Bpitch control 2007) - So good. Wish I had released more stuff like this on Narita.
Minilogue - The Leopard (Extrawelt Remix) (Traum 2007) - More great techno that would have found a home on Narita.
Steve Roach - A Deeper Silence (Timeroom Editions) - 73 minute ambient track. So good.
Krill.Minima - Kronen Dab (Native State 2007) - Highlight of the excellent Bioluminescence comp., and one of my favorite tracks by him.
Martyn - All I Have Is Memories (Apple Pips) - Fringey dubstep stuff.
Appleblim - Vansan (Skull Disco 2007) - Dubstep meets Dubtechno meets IDM.
D-bridge - Creatures of Habit (Exit)- Nice DnB highlight of the year, 90’s atmospheric sound brought into the now.
Klute - Property is Theft (Commercial Suicide 2007) - Always mixed on his stuff, but this one is superb.
Anders Ilar - Hillside (Level) - One of the many highlights from his 2008 album Sworn. The subtle melody that comes in halfway through the track is so butter.
Soulmatic - Self Belief (Good Looking 2009) - This one just came out in Jan. of this year, but it started appearing in mixes last year, so I’m going with that. Lovely DnB.
And an honorable mention to Lone’s album “Lemurian” (on Dealmaker), very solid overall with alot of standout tracks, couldn’t figure just one for the list. J-dilla meets Boards of Canada.
And a special mention of my favorite blog of last year: Industrial Decay - Great photography (mostly from europe) of abandoned buildings.
Lot of good stuff I missed on that list probably, but I wanted to get this out there before we’re too far into 2009.
Posted in Music | 9 Comments »
April 1st, 2009
So the mess that was Normrex has finally been resolved and put on the right track. So I’m proud to say Travis’s first album in years, “Want to 1 2″, will finally be coming out on April 12th. In the meantime hes released a single promoting the album, and also appears numerous times on production on the new Theophilus London album “This Charming Man” (Also has production by Jimmy Edgar on it too).
Here is a little promo video spot.
You can hear/buy the single on Itunes here.
You can hear/buy the T. London album on Itunes here.
And I have a tasty little treat for you courtesy of Travis and I (for those of you who haven’t pirated the advance version), here is my favorite track (and the closing track) on the Want to 1 2 album. Enjoy!
-G
(Oh, this isn’t an april fools joke either, seriously, click the links)
Posted in Downloadable, Music | 5 Comments »
March 18th, 2009
Sorry for the lack of posts, I’ve had a busy last few months. I hope to be doing 1 post a week for the spring, and hopefully endeavoring into more personal territory as well. So here goes….
I think everyone (including me) nowadays kind of always assumes that things that are put on the net, will always be around. There are 2 such things that I have always regretted not ‘grabbing’ for myself off the net. As they have since disappeared from the time I first discovered them.
First off was the original website and designs of Vir2l. Some of you may remember them as THE ILLEST web design company in the late 1990’s. They did some simply AMAZING graphics. Very inspirational to visual styles I would later strive for on Merck releases. The company of course split up over differences amongst the various cocky designers (is what I’ve been told), and now the name seems to be somehow involved in cell phone games. Nonetheless, its nearly impossible to find ANY pics of any of the amazing stuff they did back in the day (even on pages and pages of google image searches).
The second thing is this website i found many years back that was someones detailed personal exploits, stories, and adventures in the world of Ultima Online. For the most part they were all griefing stories, and boy were they awesomely hilarious. He had dozens and dozens of well written out tales of various exploits he’d been involved in of torturing, stealing, and causing general strife in the world of Ultima Online (the first major MMORPG, and wild west of sorts as far as those kind of games go), most of them with great screenshots to illustrate. I can’t express how entertaining it was to read these things (and I never even got to play Ultima Online directly either!). Once again the sites content has seemingly disappeared from the internet (I don’t even know what the URL was). I spent 4 hours one day scouring Google, but was left with nothing.
The lesson, if you find a site with content you really love. Your best friend may be a wget or a lot of right click and saving.
-G
Posted in Art, Culture | 15 Comments »