MERK
Photo by Tim Trompeter.
There’s something palliative-yet-melancholic about the five-minute period of grace that follows heavy rainfall — especially in New York, where the scent of sweet petrichor quickly turns into a heavy waft of wet garbage. Such can also be said when a romance goes sour, as the eclectic New York collective MERK synthesizes on their latest happy-go-sad track “Tear Drops.” With a sing-along style chorus (baby, this was meant to make you cry/ don’t ask me why) backed by twinkling piano notes serving as the bare instrumentation behind the vocals, the track is surely appropriate for the warmer months we’re currently in.
Consisting of Zimbabwean siblings T, Maritza and Bic — alongside rapper Milli and their in-house producer Juju — MERK flashes a range of influences, from ’80s new wave to trap. “Tear Drops,” premiering today on The FADER, flexes that range. “We made it at like 3 a.m., and our pops actually came up with the name as we we were writing it," MERK shared of the song over email. "It’s a balance of somber and happiness in a relationship... we really just wanted to make a shawty cry tears of happiness.” Watch the video for the first single from their upcoming Safe In Sound project, below.