Merciless Records
| Merciless Records | |
|---|---|
 Logo of the label |
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| Active years | since 1989 |
| founder | Volker Schwechheimer |
| Seat | Arnstein |
| Website | http://www.merciless-records.de/ |
| Sub-label | Breath of Night Records |
| Genre (s) | Black metal , death metal , thrash metal |
Merciless Records is a German record label and mailorder based in Arnstein . It was named after the Swedish death / thrash metal band Merciless .
history
The mailorder was founded by Volker Schwechheimer in the middle of 1989 because the albums he wanted were not available in stores, or only at high prices, or in the mail orders established at the time. In order to get publications cheaper, he wrote to the bands and labels concerned and took several copies of each with a volume discount, which he then resold to friends and at concerts. Schwechheimer sees the distribution of copied lists with titles available from him as the start of the mailorder. In addition, he expanded his activities to become an independent label in order to be able to barter with other record companies and "satisfy his own desire for more metal material [...]". Musically, the label initially concentrated on the second wave of Black Metal in the early 1990s , and the friendship with the band Ungod from nearby Gochsheim was helpful here . This way, contacts to Martyrium and later also to disaster could be made quickly , albums of these three bands were also the first releases of the label. Plans to raise Merciless Records "on a grand scale" were made again by Schwechheimer in the mid-1990s due to the growing burden discarded, instead the label's activities were completely suspended for a period of time a few years later.
“In the end […] [I] could hardly spend any more time devoting myself to what is at the core of Merciless Records, namely the release of creative metal bands. [...] [I] made a radical cut and first threw it in order to rearrange everything. "
By mid-2011, Merciless Records released just 24 albums in around 18 years of existence ( EPs , singles and license presses excluded). With the resumption of label activities, the stylistic range of the published bands has expanded. In addition to traditional Death, Thrash and Black Metal, some releases can also be assigned to Doom Metal and more experimental music.
Merciless Records also took over the production and distribution of releases for the Breath of Night Records label in the late 1990s. Its founder Andrew Jay "Akhenaten" Harris, who was mainly active as a musician with the black metal band Judas Iscariot , saw himself only as a discoverer of interesting bands and mediator between them and Merciless Records. The label also released albums from other bands under license from other record companies as records, including Deceased ... , Deranged , Impaled , Limbonic Art , Rotten Sound , Serpent Obscene , Usurper and Witchery . The label's own mailorder is called Metribution.com .
Publications (selection)
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Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Christian Wachter: Label Special Merciless Records: New ways without losing tradition . In: Legacy , issue 74 (05/2011 - September / October), page 148.
- ↑ The label's official website lists only 23 albums.
- ↑ Bruno Zamora: Interview with Akhenaten of Judas Iscariot ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . tartareandesire.com, accessed September 14, 2011.
