„Transferring my feelings into music.“ – Benedikt Merkl
Our world changed in a way like never before in recent years and decades. We were forced to stop our current lives and even after a year everything still feels surreal. Clubs are closed, festivals are postponed or canceled, artists and employees unemployed for months – our scene is confronted with the toughest crisis in the post-war period. But luckily even a pandemic won’t stop the music itself. We were able to find and create alternative channels for the output, for example, great live streams were hosted by HÖR, United We Stream, Art Bei Ton, Monument and many more. Many artists are creative and productive in this slowed reality. Constant mixes and releases help us to get us through those hard times.
2 years ago we had the chance to speak with Silent-One aka Benedikt Merkl about his ambitious and outstanding ambient label Intimate Silence. With great releases from artists such as Pär Grindvik, Głós, or Thomas Hessler, Intimate Silence explores the variety and depth of ambient soundscapes. Besides the label, the project of Benedikt also has a podcast series, which continues despite the pandemic and takes their listeners on several unique journeys into the beauty of ambient sound spheres. Nørbak, Mareena, Desroi, and Anja Kraft are just a few names who contributed a podcast to the series.
For this special episode Monument and Intimate Silence collaborate together with mixes from 2 team members: Fernie and Vy Tran. Fernie has been crafting his sound since 2002 taking strong influences from his hometown of Glasgow’s techno heavyweights immersing himself in the local scene championing hypnotic and ambient textures. Most recently he has contributed releases on DNC Limited and Obscure Sorrows Records as well as his own Space Textures imprint. He joined MNMT in June of 2020 working on streaming and podcasts for the team.
Vy Tran is a writer and member of Monument since 2018 who is regularly contributing high-quality content in the form of articles, interviews, and reviews. Like everyone in Monument, he is also a techno enthusiast and a passionate vinyl collector.
Both members will show you their selection with picks from deep space comprising of both fresh releases as well as lost relics from the vault.
