Merlin Tees!
New “Face in the Basement” Merlin tees in 3 colors: black, red & blue and 3 sizes: small, medium & large. The price is NOK 150,- or $30 US including shipping. The price excluding shipping (for you local Oslo people) is 120,-.
We’re going to do this the easy way. If you would like to order a tee, just send an e-mail to merch {at} merlincore {dot} com and let us know the colour and size you would like (plus your address). We’ll give you payment instructions and send the t-shirt off within 1-3 days. Alternatively, add a comment to this blog entry or send us a Twitter-message @merlincore and we’ll take it from there!
If you’d like a tee, then it’s probably smart to be quick because the numbers are very limited!
Update 1: Medium red sold out.
death by fear of gods on the eve of the smallest of them
Part two : a sticker can stick to a life
a policeoffice, best described in the numerous semi-actionmovies of the nineties and our own decade
act one : smell whats cooking
He lays down the phone and peels of the sticker saying `pigfest` next to the phone, These last few weeks have seen the habit of trying to make the corners of it stick to the desk as the rest has done before meeting the remainder of the lunch in his trashcan. The moment, as they said is finally here. He grabs his jacket and turns of the lights and locks the door. These last few weeks have seen him leave hour after the other employees. No one tries to change this.. Officer Charles defines the image of a man who had it all, but lost it all to a bottle and a devil with a red dress who promised him the world in a time where he could not see that he allready had it. His wife and two daughters standing as proof of it. He was allowed to call the devil in the red dress whatever he wanted, but she was as far away now as his family.. The bottle however, was only moments away.
She met him in the door and his first thoughts where about how she resembled a certain devil in a red dress. the smell of food drew his thoughts away and he blessed her for her cooking. She made numerous points about it for good reason. Her rice and turkey could make a statue move. He sat down and saw a glass of something resembling Laphroig. Bless her heart. As she started walking and talking around the room. The food, drink, her figure and her well chosen words made him once again dream of a world he knew all to well he had no ability to see no more.
act three : there is a bridge to be built from the edge of the world
the room is lit only by a thin ray of light emerging from between shut curtains. It hits a bed where something is moving. this is all one sees (think cartoonish)
the man sits up and sees to his amusement that his tshirt is still soaking. Purely from his own tears. It fills him with reason and the reassurance that this is really real. His determination does not come from a dream or wishfull thougts. This is going to happen. Now and forever.
the man gets up and sneaks out the door of the room in the motel he never payed for. he finds a road and start to walk on it. Out of this story and out where we can never find him. Seconds before we would have lost sight of him he strays of the road and walks of into something we cant see. looks like a forest.
This whole act up untill this point has only the sound of air and Caramel prisoners
the music fades but the picture lingers. Instead of credits roll a car comes driving down the road just abandoned by the man and the car pulls into the motel. While the woman starts searching the rooms the man wearing a battered police uniform walks into the main hall and pulls the receptionist over the counter and starts punching him and shouting about a man with to much knowledge. The poor vageslave has no information at all and as the focus goes back to the woman who has now found the room she is sure he has squatted this night, a gun goes of and several people wake up from theire dreams thinking as they wake up that cheap motels suck. The couple leaves in a hurry and a cloud of dust.
Norwegian Wood - Full Concert!
A Game of Domino During The Murder at Babylon
Merlin is happy to present you with two brand new songs: A Game of Domino and Murder at Babylon! You can listen to them by pressing play next to the song titles to the right of this article, by going to our MySpace page or by downloading them in high quality right here. If you want to read the lyrics, click “Read more” below! We’d love to hear what you think, so if you want to drop us a comment in this blog, we’d be happy to hear from you.
In other news, Merlin will be performing at the prestigious Norwegian Wood festival Saturday 14th of June at 2:45pm (CET), if you want to see the show, it will be broadcast live at www.nrk.no/urort. Some time in the future we would also like to perform in the brand new opera building of Oslo, like PJ Harvey did with such a great style.
Urørt interviews
Part 1: can be downloaded here.
Part 2: can be downloaded here.
Part 3: can be downloaded here.
Part 4: can be downloaded here.
Sorry to all our non-Norwegian-speaking friends!
Merlin is Ukas Urørt!
For those who don’t know what Urørt is, it is both a site where bands can share their music with others and also a radio program on NRK P3 (Norwegian National Radio) where the producers of the show play songs that they like from the Urørt site. In addition to this, every week they pick one band that they wish to single out and promote more heavily, and this week this honour was given to us. This includes playing an interview + “Write Riot Right” on the radio every night this week. We are of course stoked about this, as it brings our music to a much greater audience.
You can read the article about us here in Norwegian, and also check out a new press photo on the same site. We will translate the text into English at the next free moment, but for now you can see if you can make sense of the Google translation!
So if you tune in to NRK P3’s Urørt at around 10pm-10:30pm, you can hear us chat away and completely unsuccessfully play our theremin on the air :) Next week, we’ll be playlisted on Urørt in association with the Norwegian Wood concert, so you can hear us then too.
In other news, we have sent two new songs to be mastered at Cuttingroom in Sweden, so hopefully there should be some new music from us the beginning of next week!
Thank you for the votes (revisited)!
Yet again - we owe you all a huge thank you for voting for us in the Underwood competition (see directly below)! As a consequence, Merlin is playing Saturday 14th of June at Norwegian Wood! That’s right, we were one of the top 4 bands with the highest amount of votes. It’s going to be quite an experience playing for 3000-4000 people, one that we will make sure to write about so watch this space. If you happen to be in the Oslo area the next few months, you can catch us playing a few shows around town. Look on the right column of this place for details!
In other news, this weekend we will be mixing two of the songs we recorded during our previous stay in the studio, so you’ll get to hear some new music from us in the very beginning of June.
Merlin at Norwegian Wood? We need your votes!
Hi friends!
We have now been chosen for another vote-off on the web, this time to play at one of Norway’s coolest festivals: Norwegian Wood, with bands including Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Dinosaur Jr. and Jimmy Eat World. We got picked amongst 400 bands to be one of the 20 to go head to head. Needless to say, this is an incredible opportunity for us, one that doesn’t come along very often, so we would love it if you could spare a moment to help us!
We would really, really appreciate it if you could be so kind to go to:
http://www.nrk.no/urort/underwood
And vote for us. You simply choose “Merlin” from the list of bands and click the “STEM HER” button.
Thank you so much in advance!
The Manhattan Trio: Recording 3 New Songs
On May 1st, Merlin re-entered the dragon to record three more songs for The Manhattan Project (the codename of our next album). This time, Deathsong, Murder at Babylon and the new A Game of Domino During The Cointelpro were in line. The location was the same as where we recorded Write Riot Right a mere month earlier; Harry’s Gym Recordingstudios with Bjarne. We upped the ante and decided to spend 4 days there this time. 4 days well spent.
Day 1: Murderdrums
After a parade in our honour in town, Mags and his flu took to the drum set. Mags had just put a fever behind him the day before, but that could only be noticed in his closer-to-death-by-the-minute presence, and certainly not his drumming. Both Deathsong and Murder at Babylon got a boost and we could already sense that these songs were about to see a slight change in personality for the better. Raw energy with a little drop of poison. A few hours into the proceedings we already had all the drum tracks in place. And Magnus was thankfully still alive. Quite possibly the best drum tracks ever to include a wire and a bottle of seltzer.
Day 2: Horror Groove
On the second day, we continued laying the bricks by starting to record the bass. To get a warm sound, as well as a bass with a distinct personality, we ran Carl through two amps; our newly purchased Fender Twin Reverb Custom 15″ amp, named “Masterman” for bottom, and an Ampeg amp for tone. Which is the opposite rig that most bands would use, but it gave us the feel we were looking for. We also put up a wall between the amps and a pinch of gain on there to provide the bass with a voice of its own. By 4pm, we had everything on bass recorded and could actually start on guitars. Deathsong was the first in line, and we nearly finished that song. The rest had to wait till day 3.
Day 3: Six Deadly Strings
With the guitars well underway, we commenced the six string sessions on the third day, with Martin and I; Shah, throwing the guitar duties back and forth. Martin’s rig was a Double Dragon setup (running the guitar through two amps) with an Orange Tiny Terror + Orange cab and a Fender Super Chorus amp, and I played through Masterman; our new Fender Twin Reverb amp. This created two very contrasting sound, with the Double Dragon rig providing the punch and Masterman providing and accentuating the tone. This time around, we also used a Deucetone Rat Pedal for an extra kick and the Radio Havana (see a previous blog entry for details) for a more shady experience. The goal was to give each song a different texture, and I think we achieved that.
On the 3rd day I also recorded a little Wurlitzer track on Deathsong, Carl and Mags recorded some fletless bass action on Murder at Babylon and we started the vocals.
Day 4: Vocal Schizophrenia
The last day mainly consisted of wrapping up the vocals and seeing it all fall into place. With a certain master plan, we set out on a musical vocal journey which consisted of depressed gnomes, a scarecrow, a talking stomach, whispers in reverse and a herd of sheep in falsetto-induced euphoria. In addition to that, there were tambourines, grand pianos and some other percussion, all made to sound like they were being played from the bottom of the sea. Or nothing like it. You be the judge.
We plan to mix the three songs at end of May, so you’ll have to wait until then to hear the fruits of our loom. Until then, you can check out some of the millions of video clips we recorded during our endeavours, resting peacefully on our YouTube account, or check out our Twitter account for all the updates we made during the 4 days, plus more updates in the future. See you on the dark side.
We won! Thanks for the votes!
Yesterday we won the competition on Radio Tango and as a result we will be playlisted on a kickass radio channel! We just want to thank everyone who voted and helped us bring our music to the lovers of alternative music in Norway! If you live in Oslo, you can tune in at FM105.8, or simply go to the Radio Tango website to stream live from the net.
Thank you all once again!