Phonons Podcast 077 Merv

The story .. so far In the beginning of the 1990s four guys got together in a basement studio on Bornholm (small island in the Baltic Sea) and founded Merv. The members at that time were Brian Oldenborg, Jan Christiansen, Johnnie Schmidt and Thomas Gylsen. Demo tapes were recorded on DAT and sent to a label in Copenhagen. The label was Mainline Records run by late Henrik Möll and Daniel Mortazavi. The label consisted of several sublabels including Dancecop, which was the label aiming for underground techno releases. Merv debuted with the EP "Melted Vein" and despite a bad vinyl quality and sound at that time, the record attracted attention enough for years to come. In the following three years follow-up EPs were released, but it never really took off and the band started working with other projects. After several years of hiatus (17 years to be exact), a Berlin based label Styrax contacted Merv with the idea of doing a repress of two specific tracks - "Dust" and "Melted Vein". The guy behind the label was Steffen Laschinski aka Rising Sun. It should not just be a re-press of the originals, but a remastered edition fixing all the audio flaws that were present on the old recordings. In the meantime Johnnie Schmidt and Thomas Gylsen had left the band. Brian Oldenborg and Jan Christiansen met in the studio once again to look for the old DAT tapes containing the tracks. Luckily they were still intact and were recorded digitally and audio artefacts removed before they were sent to final re-mastering. The EP was named "Re-Melted" and the mastering was done at Dubplates and Mastering which was founded by none other than Basic Channel. The original was not pressed in large numbers so the news about a repress with enhanced audio was very welcomed by the dub techno collectors. The reissue got so much attention that it was obvious to introduce Merv again as a band and in the following years Jan & Brian started producing tracks again. It was a challenge to get the same vibe since all of the old equipment were long gone and replaced by software based synths and drum machines. To reproduce the vibes of the Merv sound, analog mixer and synths were brought back in the studio together with the same effects units that shaped the sound in the 90s. The journey up until today has been quite a ride with lots of releases on dedicated vinyl labels like Minimood, Ranges, Subwax, Kontakt and many more. The ride is not over so stay tuned ! https://www.discogs.com/fr/artist/99174-Merv https://kontakt-records.bandcamp.com/album/merv-meticule-ep-stojche-andr-kronert-rmx https://kontakt-records.bandcamp.com/album/merv-remain https://www.deejay.de/Merv_Form_MINIMOOD022_Vinyl__959061