Merge Merge Is... We here at Merge like the good times. We like the good old times but we like the good new times even better. We recognize the joy inherent in a bit of... Read More	Verge A Word With Pixelh8 For a man whose name implies a dislike of pixels, Matthew Applegate, aka Pixelh8 sure seems to enjoy making music about them.His latest album, 2007'sT... Read More	Pictures and Words Inside North Korea Story and photographs by Colum Graham.If there's a man you want to send into North Korea it's Colum Graham. A dang-blasted great writer as well as a g... Read More
Chew CD - The Black Angels: DIRECTIONS TO SEE A GHOST Directions to See a Ghost by Texan group The Black Angels is like the soundtrack to everything going wrong. It’s the sound of the whole world co... Read More	Politickin Halftime at the Beijing Olympics So we’re now almost halfway through the Beijing Olympics and already neck-deep in scandal and intrigue.Following an absolute public relations ni... Read More	Merge Galleries Create, Collaborate, Share, Consume.Upload your visual, and written creativity, art andphotography, and view others work here.Visit the gallery. Read More

Wall Talk: Moving Image Tour What happens when you give an art-toting, hat-wearing, projector-bike-riding, video-shooting, super-guide a generator and a loudspeaker? Well if it wasn’t during SALA (the South Australian Living Artists festival), he’d likely be arrested or even put in a padded room. Thankfully though, it is SALA and instead, those who braved the frigi... Read More

Nike To Meat Shoe No we haven’t suddenly forgotten everything Sesame Street taught us about spelling, it’s just an extravagant pun we thought entirely appropriate for this extravagant Nike project. Artist Olle Hemmendorff, along with seven other artsy-type people were commissioned by Nike to put their spin on eight different Nike Sportswear icons. Dubbed... Read More

Unphotoshopping The phrase 'the camera doesn't lie' seems like an ironic joke these days. In an era where a few clicks in Photoshop can take an image out of all reality, you can't trust a camera as far as you can throw it (I mean a really heavy camera). All of which is why Henry Hadlow's series 'Tell a Lie', which subverts the proud tradition of Photoshopping, is ... Read More

A Word With Idan Raichel The Idan Raichel Project changed the Israeli pop music scene in 2002 with their message of love and tolerance. Merge caught up with the guy, who started it all in his parent’s basement: IDAN RAICHEL.What role did the military have in your development as a musician?Like all young people in Israel, I had to join the Army when I turned 18. It is... Read More

A Word With Matty Boylan Matty Boylan started off DJing in Adelaide before taking the leap across the pond to Kyushu, Japan, where he continues to live, work, and spin today. When Matty recently skipped back home for a few days, Merge took the opportunity to catch up with him and find out what life is like for anAdelaidean DJ up Nippon way. Here's what Matty told us over a... Read More

Dubious Moments in Australian History: CANBERRA The year was 1908 and the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia needed a capital city. Unable to decide between Sydney and Melbourne, the powers that be decided instead to create an entirely new city located between the two. Little did they know that this bold plan would one day lead to the creation of one of the planet’s true wonders: the w... Read More

Welcome to Blackwater III Story and photographs by Wolfgang Hackman.Wolfgang Hackman isMerge's kind of guy. He spent a lotof timein the Queensland outback getting baked and thenflooded (not drug references), and now he's telling all.In this final installment,we bid farewellto oldBobbity Brown andthe angry townsfolk - and ponder the future for atown with none.(Remember: Read... Read More

Welcome to Blackwater II Story and photographs by Wolfgang Hackman.Wolfgang Hackman is one of Adelaide's best up-and-coming authors. Here is part two of his superb story about hisexperience as a newshound in a small town in the Queensland outback. This time around:angry farmers, angry Bob Browns, and an angry, angry sun. (Remember: Read part one first!)Half an hour early, ... Read More

Welcome to Blackwater Story and photographs by Wolfgang Hackman.Wolfgang Hackman is one of Merge's favourite Adelaide authors. Recently he spent time in outback Queensland at a small newspaper with only the outrageously-sized horseflies for company. Here is the first in a series of three installments hehas written about his brush with the big boys of Federal Politics. W... Read More

Why We Like to Be Arseholes by Richard Pichler. Illustrations by Owen Lindsay.As I sit writing this in the outdoor garden restaurant of Singapore’s Changi prison chapel museum there is a calm sense of peacefulness in the air. The sun is shining and a balmy breeze blows while smiling bar staff and chefs bustle about. This is a stark contrast to what lies within the priso... Read More

FILM - Persepolis Persepolis is a graphic memoir in the vein of one of Merge’s favourite story-tellers, Joe Sacco. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, well you’re just going to have to see this film and then pick up Palestine. Persepolis (pronounced: per-sep-olis) is a graphic novel, turned animated feature which depicts the life of Marjane Satra... Read More

FILM - Son of Rambow There’s a scene at the beginning of Son of Rambow that sums up the rest of the film quite nicely. 11 year-old Lee Carter (Will Poulter) pelts down the footpath after pirating a movie (Rambo: First Blood, obviously) at the local cinema. Passing a garden where a man on a ladder trims a tree, Carter pauses, picks up a soccer ball, and pegs the g... Read More

CD - Nas: UNTITLED With a rambling piano thatinvokes the image ofsoft rain falling on parched earth, Nas' ninth album begins. And at about the same time you begin to doubt the father of Illmatic the weathered voice of one of Hip Hop's biggest influences, Nasir Jones, cuts in with a biting heat that has been missing since his Queens Bridge days. Many might say this is... Read More

CD - Pivot: O SOUNDTRACK MY HEART You’ll need a metal mixing bowl. A metal one, mind. Chuck in a big hunk of Kraftwerk and a dash of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Aphex Twin, before sprinkling in a couple of shakes of Do Say Make Think. Now get an electric mixer and combine that all until chunks form. Then turn out the lights. All done? That humming in the air you should be... Read More

CD - Esperanza Spalding: ESPERANZA A genius on the acoustic double bass as well as a composer and vocalist (in three languages, no less), Esperanza Spalding is already a lecturer at the Berklee College of Music and boasts a string of tours and an album (2006’s Junjo). The word ‘prodigy’ may have been coined for her.Esperanza sees Spalding proving that she’s i... Read More

Differing Street Views Google Street View has hit the pavements of Australia, and its arrival has caused more than a slight tremor. The revolutionary technology is the stuff CIA spy movies are made of - the "Find me the address of John Doe. Now pan... pan... ENHANCE!" type.Using a series of images snapped from a roaming Google van last year, Google Street View ... Read More

Heating Up Things getting a little warmer around your neck of the woods? Maybe not in Adelaide at the moment (where we had our coldest morning in 25 years today), but lately Kevin Rudd’s definitely been feeling the heat. By now, the phrase “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” should be tattooed onto the brain of anyone who follows the n... Read More

Protest is Go The public’s right to “annoy” pilgrims gathered for the Catholic youth festival, World Youth Day, in Sydney has been restored after the controversial state law prohibiting such actions was reversed. People are grabbing packets of condoms by the bag-full and heading to Sydney to annoy the papal-enthusiasts with their prophylactics.... Read More

Salute to Peter Norman Salute is due for its cinematic release later this week, a timely debut for a film that focuses on the theme of human rights at an Olympic games.Matt Norman’s documentary of his uncle’s silver-medal performance in the 1968 Mexico Olympics is a compelling and emotive story of a proud Australian and an even prouder humanist. The fact that... Read More

Go-Go Cops of the Olympics Is Beijing prepared for every contingency come August when those five coloured rings join together in celebration of peace, internationalism and sportsmanship? You bet!These pictures are from one of China’s official State newspapers.Described as China’s “laugh riot police” on one blog, the gang of go-go copslookas though it ... Read More