Robert Merlak

The latest album Potapanje Brodova is a follow-up to Robert Merlak's 2020 album Finomehanika, which was described by Steph Kretowicz for The Wire as "delicately assembled combinations of organic and electronic sounds, wherein piano, field recordings and synths are made indistinguishable from one another in a layered motion of abstract ambience and gratifyingly crunchy textures". On his new album, Robert continues to merge field recordings and synthesis, this time deploying a wider array of machines to grand effect.

Potapanje Brodova began life in 2005 as an art installation in Rijeka, detailing the Croatian port city's post-war industrial collapse. The name is Hrvatski for "sinking ships", as well as the local title of the children's game Battleship. The installation's one hour soundtrack, which played on loop during the month-long residency, now exists on a single USB stick. This rusting steel case, with silver ship engraving, is displayed at Rijeka's Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, in memory of the exhibition.

Almost 20 years later, Robert has revisited and reworked these recordings on this new record. Alongside the exhibition soundtrack, we are treated to an archival 25-minute improvisation, using prepared piano and sample manipulation, recorded live in 2004. Be it the symbolic sinking of behemoth rusting hulls, or delicate interference under the piano lid, Robert's fascination with obsolete, subversive mechanics is writ large on Potapanje Brodova.