09 April 2021 - 0 Comments

Today Merk releases his triumphant second album Infinite Youth – a welcome return for the Auckland based indie musician. Featuring tracks H.N.Y.B, GOD, Laps Around The Sun and Deep Dive, Infinite Youth showcases a simplicity of rhythm, melody and lyrics, it’s a distilled Merk, a very poignant Merk and an album that warms with every listen.

Earlier this week Merk also released new single But She Loves You complete with visualiser. Of the track 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.”

A full 11 tracks, Infinite Youth examines the blurry line between adolescence and adulthood, and all the clarity and mess that comes with it. It is an album that is on its most basic level homemade, however, even on first glance, the expanse it takes in is clear as a listener moves below the album’s surface: every metaphor on Laps Around The Sun' is circular, the lyrics on But She Loves You respond directly to the movements of the melody they accompany, the iPhone recording of Side A closing track Canoe Song foreshadows the motifs of Side B closing track Infinite Youth.

This feeling, of a simplicity that opens into a great depth, is refracted through every aspect of Infinite Youth: sonically, it was essential that this album leave behind the guitars that Perkins had 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.

“In the past it felt like I was hiding, but now I’m trying to wear my heart on my sleeve a little more,” Perkins muses. He 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

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.

To celebrate the release of Infinite Youth Merk is heading out on his first ever national headline tour. Merk with full band will play five dates across Aotearoa in May. Beginning in Tauranga and taking in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch the tour wraps up in Dunedin and will be fans first chance to hear songs from the new album performed live.

Merk will also be performing at Great Escape Online on May 13-14. Typically based in Brighton, England but moved online for 2021, The Great Escape is an esteemed musical discovery festival, featuring some of the world’s best new artists. See greatescapefestival.com for ticket information.

INFINITE YOUTH – OUT NOW THROUGH HUMBLEBRAG RECORDS.
Distributed via Border Music (NZ) + Made with the support of NZ On Air

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