We had the pleasure of interviewing Merk over Zoom video!
Merk is the musical moniker of Auckland, New Zealand artist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Mark Perkins who began his career as a touring member of Tom Lark and Fazerdaze. Merk’s recent singles “H.N.Y.B” and “GOD” have already earned critical acclaim spanning SPIN Magazine and BBC Radio 6. Today, he reveals new single/video “Laps Around The Sun'' alongside the announcement of his debut globally released album Infinite Youth due out April 9 on Humblebrag Records. 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.
“Laps Around The Sun” is the record’s thesis-statement. What may immediately strike a listener as introspective cynicism morphs into celestial acceptance, finding circularity and reprisal as infinitely compelling tools in moving forward. He muses: “This song is about finding poetry in the mundane, repetitiveness of life. It was written on my birthday, which is also Valentine's Day. Whether you are waiting for the weekend or celebrating another lap around the sun, or falling in and out of love or doing the dishes there’s beauty to be found in the never-ending repetitions and rhythms of life. By sheer coincidence we ended up filming the video on my birthday too, so it was natural for it to become about that. We made it very guerilla style with a small crew of friends, it felt super wholesome and very meta."
Pop songs that transcend the basic, disregard the complex, and zero in on the simple: Merk seeks to find where ABBA, The Beach Boys, The Carpenters, the Japanese City Pop of the late 70s and 80s meet. An album that will capture you on first listen and then reward your every repetition, Infinite Youth reintroduces Merk and invites you, warmly, into his orbit.
Perkins learned the craft of recording and producing under the stewardship of Crowded House’s (and now Fleetwood Mac’s!) Neil Finn while working at Roundhead Studios. His debut album Swordfish went on to win Best Debut Album at the Taite Music Prize (New Zealand’s equivalent of the Mercury or Polaris Prize), and led to tours with Cub Sport, Marlon Williams and Julia Jacklin in Australia and New Zealand.
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