EPK – Merfolk
For fans of Hollenthon, Arcturus, Akercocke, Emperor, Abigor
Melogy.ca/merfolk | Facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553443841461
Merfolk.bandcamp.com | Spotify
Digital – Sundaland (2025) – https://artists.landr.com/990591564626
Digital – Demersal (Remastered) – https://artists.landr.com/990591563315
Album Title: Sundaland
Release Date: May 26, 2025
Album Length: 29:32
1. The Plowing Sea – 3:04
2. Krasue Came Warning – 4:15
3. The Ghost Fleet – 6:59
4. Castaways – 6:05
5. Sundaland – 1:54
6. Time Warp – 2:49
7. MOUSEHUNT !!! – 4:22
All words, vocal, music, arrangements, and performances by Patrick Loisel
Keyboards, violins, cellos, and contrabasses recorded in Laval-Ouest in 2023
Drums, guitars, bass, and vocals recorded in St-Henri (Montréal,) summer/fall 2024.
Mixed by Patrick Loisel in St-Henri, January and February 2025.
Mastered by Alain Londero in Laval, March 2025.
Booklet by Patrick Loisel & Jean-Rémi Marceau
Guitar: Merfolk 2018 ( Mini RR V in walnut with EMG pickup)
Bass: Merfolk 2023: Fretless 5 strings in purpleheart with Bond pickup.
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About The Album Artwork:
The album artwork is actually an old, cheap Aztec shield that my ex-wife bought in a Mexican market and gave me. I found it cool, and I also wanted people to react because Sundaland was in Asia, and that piece is from Mexico, so I wanted to see if anyone would notice.
About the album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):
Sundaland is eclectic, and goes between Therion and Cryptopsy-like ambiance.
The concept is about an Atlantis-like cataclysm that sinks the land, but the people then mistook it for a sea monster, whom they try to appease with offerings (The Plowing Sea), which was a bit late since they were notified in advance by witches (Krasue came warning)
Krasues are ghosts that are basically a hovering head with entrails dangling underneath, and that’s METAL !!!
Parts of the population move to mainland Asia, the Americas (The Ghost Fleet), and some stay and try to retrieve artifacts from their sunken homes (Castaways).
While doing so, they encounter another civilization that the cataclysm had revealed (most of the clip).
The title track is a short instrumental, and the last two are bonus tracks. Time Warp is about the Alt-Right moral panics (that mimic similar 40 years ago) while MOUSEHUNT !!! It is total cartoonish delirium.
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Band: Merfolk
EP Title: Demersal (Remastered)
Release Date: May 16, 2025 – Original EP – December 3, 2022
Track Listing:
1. Demersal – 5:49
2. Orbs Night Out – 7:00
3. Mind Hive – 4:40
4. Doggerland (Harp solo) – 2:55
5. Inner World (Inst..) – 4:59
EP Credits:
Recorded, mixed and mastered at Merfolk Studio, Laval, 2021 through 2022.
All compositions, performance and engineering by Patrick Loisel
except female vocals on ”Orbs Night Out” by Sylvie Régimbald and additional mastering by Antoine Baril.
Remastered by Patrick Loisel May 2025..
Strings instruments and recording facilities built by Patrick Loisel.
Mind Hive videoclip : Filmed by the same facilities in 2023.
all art, props and operations by Patrick Loisel.
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FUN FACT – STORY ANGLE :
1. What’s unique with Merfolk is that the whole chain of production up to the mastering / the T-shirt printing / the online clip diffusion, is only one person. Nearly all one-man bands I know about actually hire extra musicians and/or engineers.
Funny is that the most accomplished multi-instrumentalist that I know… plays in my band!!!
I also built the instruments used. I built the studio and about 50 puppets and props for the clips. For many, this was a stunt. For me, it was the easiest way to go.
It is sometimes hard to synchronize my creativity with other people and have someone available at 3 AM when inspiration strikes.
Everything was a first and an over-the-top challenge. Filming the clips = maneuvering several props and accessories in total darkness and having everything collapse on me. I actually immersed myself in to film ‘’Castaways’’. Behold the Abyss of the Lachine Canal!
Because I am in my 50s, a bit of a novice, and it’s not my main instrument, some folks actually thought that my drums were programmed !!!
2. I am an adopted kid of Native ancestry. I was born with osteoarthritis problems and recently overcame degenerative arthritis… by losing 50 lbs + and doing a full year of physiotherapy.
-3. I started my public life at … 8, in 1978, by winning a literature contest, then as an ecologist. I also tried as a stand-up comic. I write historical and sociological articles, both on social media and on paper.
4. I am a former physics teacher and patent historian
-5. I like to surround myself with large numbers of exotic animals. I owned up to 300 tarantulas at once.
-Normalcy?
Emerging from the depths of imagination and the abyssal trenches of sonic experimentation, Merfolk is the solo brainchild of a Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist known for his work with Augury, Kralized, and Foreshadow. Conceived in name as far back as 1994, Merfolk is the culmination of over three decades of unfiltered musical ideas, too intricate, too peculiar, and too uncompromising to be diluted by collective consensus.
Eclectic, psychedelic, spooky, unusual, and furious, Merfolk’s sound defies genre and expectation. Drawing from post-black metal’s atmospheric extremity, the eerie elegance of symphonic arrangements, and the unpredictable textures of 70s experimental music, Merfolk crafts unsettling sonic narratives that feel like haunted transmissions from submerged civilizations.
Merfolk’s debut, Demersal, was built from whispered melodies, delayed whistling, and vintage keyboard fragments, later encased in metal instrumentation. Its ambiance drifted from 70s anime soundtracks to black metal and free jazz. The follow-up, Sundaland, dives deeper into organic classical textures—violin, cello, double bass, and piano, recorded with raw authenticity. The fretless bass, custom-built for Merfolk, and a shift to electronic drums mark a sonic evolution that remains murky yet meticulously crafted.
Merfolk’s lyrical universe is steeped in aquatic mythology, USOs (Unidentified Submerged Objects), and drowned continents like Sundaland. Inspired by the 1989 film The Abyss and ancient flood myths, the songs explore the idea that the ocean’s depths and underground waters are inhabited by sentient, forgotten beings. It’s a conceptual journey through submerged histories and spectral landscapes.
The music begins in the mind—sometimes surfacing as automatic compositions, other times as deliberate constructions. Tracks are sequenced to form a fluid narrative, with lyrics emerging organically from the ambiance. Collaborations happen internally, between disparate parts of the artist’s psyche.
Though Merfolk is a solo studio project, there’s growing interest in bringing its eerie grandeur to the stage. A live setup would feature a full band, two guitars, bass, keys/violin, and a silent stage built around electronic drums and modelers to preserve the spectral whistling and immersive soundscapes. No backing tracks. No shortcuts. Just raw, live ritual.
Fans of Emperor, Mayhem, Hollenthon, Mercyful Fate, and obscure 70s oddities will find familiar shadows in Merfolk’s music. But don’t expect imitation, Merfolk is a vessel for the blastier blasts and spookier spooks, unconcerned with genre purity and driven by a singular vision.
2025 – Sundaland – LP
2022 – Demersal – EP
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