Merge (5)

Ian and Steve formed E.M. duo Merge in late 1991, when recorded their first demo album “Barophobia” at their home studio “Planet X”. Many copies of this first tape were sold at an Electronic Music Festival in late 1992 – mostly shifted by going around the audience asking them to purchase a copy at 2.50GBP each! Encouraged by the reaction to the demo, they released their first cassette album, “In the Lap of the Gods”, in January 1993 at their first gig at the Arts Centre in their home town of Reading. Within a few weeks of this initial presentation they received the accolade of “Tape of the month” in the monthly periodical magazine “Home and Studio Recording”. After performing a further concert at the same venue in Reading and being pleased at the sales of their first tape, a decision was taken to form their own record label, “Floating Brain Records”, and re-write and re-mix the tracks for a CD version of “In the Lap of the Gods”. These updated versions were recorded in December 1993 and the opening month of the New Year saw their first CD release. After presenting their music to an unsuspecting public at the first E.M.M.A. Festival in March 1994 via a sales stand and video presentation, they were invited to appear at not only the E.M.M.A. events, but were also invited to perform at the F.A.M.E. concert in London the month before. Also at E.M.M.A. festival in 1994 they announced the forthcoming second album "The Secret Life Of Maschines" which in a consequence has never been released officially on CD. But in 2012 Merge has opened their official website, where this album became available for free downloading in MP3/FLAC formats, together with other unreleased music...