distress drums : an update
So we went back to Harrys to make three new contributions to (or perhaps in memory of) the Manhattan Project. At some point this was the name of the bewinged mothership that has been providing shade in the scorching sun and shelter from the rain since we set out on this mission because of numerous discoveries made by amongst others yours truly. Namely the feel of the sound of something floating around a corner lit only by a streetlight not to far away and how dull all work and no play can make even the best or perhaps a radio in havanna and a crying goblin, double of everything and the omnipresent feel of a man cloacked and in sneak-mode to name but a few. In this spirit I also announce that we are introducing some more elements of surprise trough doubledragondrums and ideas about androgyn singers. think Kens evil twin. These are atleast ideas at this point. But more on that subject later. this is a drummers update and besides the fact that I have only a ride and a hihat to provide clean cut merlindrums with nice tidy hair if any hair at all the one thing that really makes this session interesting is that these songs are the strangest we have ever made. And we have six full days to enhance them further. This is how my department delivered
- Mugz
Day ünze:
I brought my trusted kit Spike on this sessions as well. shitty snare set aside these drums have always worked out beatifully and I had it in my mind to repeat the success. Somethings never change and after the landlord bounced my snare and gave me a new one instead we where ready to go. As previously mentioned this sessions consists of three strange fruits and we have spent a lot of time in the lab lately to find the proper tempo for each song. This proved not to have worked so well because we ended up changing them when hearing how they sounded attached to the computerscreen. Atleast we where in the ballpark from the first take and we went on to solve this problem by recording numerous drumtracks in different speeds for each song. Just to be sure that we had a plan B if it should prove to be to stressed when merging it with the Wolf. recording went fast and I nailed two or three takes of each song in different speeds this day.
Dee deux:
We listened to the songs from dee ünze and one of the proffesors felt that we had to slow down one of the songs in order to bring the sneak into it and therefore I had to bring my frank stone under the knife again. This was not as troublesome as I had feared and I broke a sweat in no time, a thing that I feel is essential in any percussive recording situation. Break a sweat! At this point we had all the drums nailed down in the courtyard and we tried to add some bass and guitar on them and it worked out great. They would suffice and there was much rejoycing! Some of the proffesors had to leave for Easfold in a hurry because of a convention regarding shouting goats in light of recent unvielded aspects of the whatclan hidden deep amongst hornclad fourfeets and I had to bring another idea to life. This was the doubledrag-drums. We founds some new cymbals and another snare. (in fact the snare we found was the snare previously tossed out into the cold by the man of the house). The things we didnt have two of such as tomtoms and toms and bassdrums faced unholy ammounts of clothes, towels and adhesive tape to remove any similarity to the other drumstracks. I tried to record an additional identical dub of the first song and I had a good feel about it. It brought a drone and doom and Aberdeen`ish feel to our songs. And i felt it was kind of original seeing as our songs are Norwegian and neither drone nor doom. Unfortunately the other professors felt that the double-drag should be used somewhere else (I suspect that they see it as something not to be let into a Merlinrecording ever again) I have another drag idea and im waiting untill later this week to let it out. Seing as I was not allowed to conjure any evil twins today we called it a wrap that noone ate and we all went our separate ways. If you wonder what the doubledrag sounds like you could listen to new melvins recordings.
Studio Week!
Merlin are in the studio from May 22nd - Thu 28th! If you are curious to what we’re up to, just head over to our Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/merlincore, we’ll post updates there!
Merlin does Battles
Merlin live tonight
See our show streamed live from Dagbladet-teltet tonight 22.30: http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/02/21/kultur/musikk/bylarm/4969270/. Dagbladet describes us as a intelligent punk/hardcore band and that is something I guess we can agree on!
Merlin på by:Larm
Neste uke spiller vi på by:Larm og skal holde tre konserter:
- Torsdag 19.febuar på JohnDee klokka 21.00
- Fredag 20.februar på SubScene klokka 19.00
- Lørdag 21.februar i Dagbladet-teltet klokka 22.30
Vi gleder oss veldig til disse konsertene og håper det kommer mange for å se på oss. Vi syntes også det er svært positivt at by:Larm i år har flere initiativ for å gi oppmerksomhet til de mindre hypede artistene på programmet. Som beskrevet her,her og her kommer by:Larm-ledelsen til å skrive om mer ukjente artister i Dagbladet frem mot festivalen:
“Gjennom hele Bylarms historie har mediene kåret artister til «vinnere». Det er imidlertid flere artister som imponerer og kommer fra det ukjente, men som ikke blir hypet.
I forkant av Bylarm kommer Dagbladet.no til å trekke fram et knippe artister som sannsynligvis ikke får noen mediehype, men som definitivt fortjener det.”
Bra initiativ som vi ønsker hjertelig velkommen!
Merlin make it to the Zoom ‘09 finals!
Despite 3 amps being destroyed some time during our 30-minute set in the Zoom semi-finals, and despite us overlaying the show with continuous feedback, the wonderful jury decided to send us to the finals and thus give us another shot at the prize. We are happy to announce that Merlin will be playing in the Zoom finals on Wed, Feb 04 at Garage, Oslo against 5 other bands (of 450 hopefuls) from all over the country!
Click here for the Facebook Event!
The grandiose prize given to the winner is an all-expenses-paid extensive tour that covers the stretched out land of Norway. Needless to say, this is a big deal, and we hope everyone in close proximity to the capital make it to Garage on Tuesday (the first night of the finale) and Wednesday (the day we play) to enjoy some of the finest new live bands around. The winner will be announced after the last band on Wednesday. Click “Read More” below for a list of all bands playing. Hope to see you there!
Merlin spiller på Zoom 09
Merlin er valgt ut til å delta på en av tre delfinaler i konkurransen Zoom 2009. Fra seks delfinaler (altså inkl. tre i oslo) vil vinneren av en sluttfinale i Oslo i februar få muligheten til å dra på norgesturne sammen med vinneren av Urørt-finalen 2009. Vi spiller på garage tirsdag 20.januar sammen med Dont Cry Wolf og Dunderbeist. Sjekk http://garageoslo.no/?id=1054 for flere detaljer. Dette blir gøy, møt gjerne opp og støtt oss :-)
Drop the phone
A band from New York called Shy Child (and the album Noise wont stop) has been growing and growing on me since I first heard them at a free concert at Blaa in Oslo late summer. They have just a great mix of edgy melodic eletropunk with a very characteristic vocal. I dont know if it was because the genre was kind of new to me or if the songs just in nature take a bit of time to start to like, but they are just becoming better and better in mye ears. The last weeks they have been inspiring me a lot when I do my bass playing. Here are some songs from the latest album:
edit: wordpress didnt like the videos embedded so here are just the links…
-http://www.youtube.com/v/aONAuZd-L0A
-http://www.youtube.com/v/sl-rHlusRAs
-http://www.youtube.com/v/yc3LFB_V7f4
I like dynamos, many of them
One of my favourite bands from the states the last year is So Many Dynamos. This is a cute little four-piece progressive, mathematical, but still kind of poppy and soft hardcore act from St. Louis, Missour. You should really check out their latest album called Flashlights and order it from here. So Many Dynamos really represents a kind of music that have given me a lot of influences the last years, they also list some of their main influences to be Battles, Weezer, At the drive-in and Cinemechanica and these are also great influences for us in Merlin. Its always interesting to read about people you are influenced by and I therefore found it quite inspiring that the Dynamos have their own studio and touring blog, check it out over here.
Please try the fork!
Our excellent drummer, beatbox-Maggie, is also doing the drums (and vocals) in another excellent band called Fork. Their debut album is called Harlekin and is out this week. Check out a brand new song on their myspace and go to one of their shows the following weeks!