Infiné, easy music for the hard to please

I know Clara because our ways crossed around 2003 in Graz. Small town, nice people. she was very into music, making her first steps with djing and i was very much into drawing and stuff, being student on a school for graphic design. As time went by we met more and more often on stage - she on the turning tables, me as a visualist. We got along very well, had a lot of fun, so we decided to make a "band", she just got herself some toys like the korg electribe and stuff and so we started doing first live acts. that has been very exciting to both of us. she was the ear-leader and I was the eye agent. At the audience just friends, so we were always assured the proper enthusiasm by the crowd ... All very romantic, so to say ...

I didn't do any music back then, because I was way too much into all the visual stuff (plus a big coward), although all the fancy tools were attracting my like the moth is caught by fire. i sang a lot when i was a little child, but always secretly, when i was alone, being terribly embarrassed when someone heard me accidentally. I used to repeat a melody again and again, afraid to lose it - once i got one that i liked, back then there was no possibility to preserve it, no way to record, no way to write down. Precious, unsteady, fragile treasures they were. And still are to me. Sounds are my obsession, melodies my jewels and words are my pearls.

I actually started to sing about 2 years ago. Freshly broken hearted, i started to articulate my feelings thru music and poetry. I just had the voice, I didn't play any instruments properly and so I started to record choirs and spoken word bubbles that expressed my notion of the world. I was totally intrigued by harmonics, combinations, rhythm and audio-montage. I started to dig in to studio and recording techniques, I started to play piano, accordion, violin, guitar and everything else that can be used to make sounds. I started to give concerts, sometimes with varying people, mostly solo with very minimalistic instrumentation and digitally processed field recordings i collected on various places.

Right now i am fascinated by electro-acoustic improvisation, by the technical aspects and the programming as well as by the wild and wide field of extended vocal techniques… by the mixture of traditional instruments and preparations with extremely sensitive live electronics.

I am very happy that the collaboration with my dear friend Clara came into being, I like her light and delicate approach to minimal techno, i like her musical sensitivity and and her intelligent humour that shines thru every little bit and byte…and i also have the impression that the friendship between us is totally audible in the tracks were i participated.






Mimu Merz is a Vienna based graphic designer, media artist, singer and songwriter.
Her works mostly have a visual and auditive component, small video pieces and drawings made by hand, digitally brought into movement.

The artist describes her vocals as: „wayward phrasings and introspective lyrics, sometimes mumbled, sometimes pointed out clearly, like a salty finger in the wound of ongoing life. Puns and structures. Patterns and norms. Lofty love and wicked war.“
(quote from ELEVATE)


Live Acts and Projects
Mimu has a few different manifestations.

„mimu at nite“ - »experimental folk«
(www.myspace.com/listentomimu), a solo performance with voice, accordeon and laptop.
The accordeon is played minimalistically, either rhythmically or droning - according to the certain song, the voice is layered over that solid ground in a very flexible way.
the vocals are very narrative, the stories are clothed in metaphoric constructions of a flowery language.
The laptop provides distinct atmospherical components such as field recordings of varying places (such as woods, cities)
or incidents (fighting dogs, car accidents), or samples of old movies, that correlate to the context.
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Zurückhaltend nachdenkliche Spinnereien rund um das fragile Innenleben einer mitteleuropäischen Durchschnittsentität, da, wo die Betonblumen blühen und die Sonne ihre Trabanten frisst, da, wo Kaiser und Hofnarr eigentlich derselbe sind. Geschichten voller Ironie, Hoffnung und Enttäuschung, voller Allegorien, süßlicher Verbohrtheit und auch etwas Botanik, Hauptrolle und Bösewicht zugleich ist die liebe Liebe, die hier in jeder ihrer Facetten zärtlich von dem Mädchen Mimu und ihren Verbündeten zu Grabe getragen wird.

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PICTURES:

all (c) by mimu.

links:
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