Merk’s Infinite Youth has an innocent quality
Listening to Infinite Youth by Merk is a nourishing, wholesome experience. A seemingly simple bedroom-pop affair, these songs are melodic Trojan horses that infiltrate your subconscious and become a welcome overstayer in your happy place.
Hailing from Tauranga, Merk (Mark Perkins) picked up an early endorsement when he was chosen to represent New Zealand at 2016’s Red Bull Music
Academy in Montreal. He graduated there, collected Best Independent Debut at the Taite Awards the following year, and hustled himself some work at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios.
It’s evident from this clever collection that he’s picked up a trick or two along the way. The sentiments are wistful, endearingly idealistic and, presented with Merk’s soft, vulnerable vocals, they lend Infinite Youth an intimate, innocent quality.
As we all occasionally do, he imagines the glamorous, worry-free lifestyle so often seen on screen in American
Parties.
The opening lines of H.N.Y.B are as succinct an admission of needing love as you will ever hear, piped through muted synths, before the genuine, gently repeated benediction ‘‘Happy New Year Baby’’ becomes lodged in your brain.
Saving the best for last, Infinite Youth culminates with the title track, where he encapsulates the indestructibility we experience in our early 20s. With bodies that bounce back so fast they must be made of rubber, and a fire in our bellies that cannot be extinguished, it soars with swelling strings underwritten with a sprightly, reassuring bass.
Judiciously punctuated with perfectly pitched percussion and backing vocals that provide depth and perspective, the tiny details in this sophisticated album (parading as a very straightforward one), exhibit another of Aotearoa’s accomplished songwriters.
Elsewhere, Brockhampton took the oft-maligned boy-band label and embraced it. The Americans pushed harder into hip-hop than their contemporaries and gained popularity, while fighting hard for integrity. They haven’t always had a clear run. In 2018, they ousted one of their 13-strong crew after sexual abuse allegations, saying they had been lied to and should have spoken out sooner.
Their latest album Roadrunner:
New Light, New Machine deals with another tricky topic, suicide, most clearly encapsulated in the record’s central song The Light.
You’d need careful study to know who is who at all times, or whether every guy is on every song, but it’s probably best to let that wash over you.
Masculine energy fuels everything here, even as it vacillates from introspective and sensitive, to brash and aggressive. Their use of distorted guitars over trap beats and hand claps takes a cue from the early work of The Neptunes, which is a good thing, but they also seem to love shouting.
All songs display in capital letters, perhaps a metaphor for how much they wish to be heard, which is ironic, because this is best in the background.
Lastly and briefly, a four-track release from a purveyor of raunchy rhythm and blues, Miguel. Art Dealer Chic 4 doesn’t pave new ground (which is great), but kicks off nicely with Funeral, a song that is way more danceable than it sounds.
A mellow moment comes on Triangle Love, which unfolds like a Frank Ocean freestyle but, towards the end, an exchange between angry lovers emerges from beneath the beat and drastically changes mood. It turns out to be Clive Owen and Julia Roberts screaming awful, awful words at each other from the movie Closer.
For those who have seen the film, it’s quite triggering, taking you directly back to that exquisitely painful drama, but that’s exactly the feeling this provocative peacock is trying to elicit.