Please note new street date: April 30. Even if we weren't living through extraordinarily troubling times, there is nothing quite like a Teenage Fanclub album to assuage the mind, body, and soul, and to reaffirm that all is not lost in this world. "Endless Arcade" follows the band's ninth album "Here", released in 2016 to universal acclaim and notably their first UK Top 10 album since 1997, a mark of how much they're treasured. The new record is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heartwarming and heartaching, guitars chime and distort, keyboard lines mesh and spiral, harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day. Recent albums such as "Shadows" and "Here" have documented a more relaxed, less "teenage" Fanclub, reflecting the band's stage in life and state of mind, alongside which "Endless Arcade" slots perfectly.The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community, and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts of insecurity, anxiety, and loss.
Merge Records was started in the summer of 1989, by Laura Ballance & Mac McCaughan, the same summer they formed the band Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC. The first couple releases were cassettes (remember those?), by WWAX and Bricks, followed by the first Superchunk (then known only as "Chunk") 7" single. The vinyl 7" was the format of choice for the first 3 years of the label, with cash borrowed from friends to finance projects (including singles from Erectus Monotone, Angels of Epistemology, and more Superchunk) and bedrooms serving as Merge HQ until 1992, when the first Merge full-length release, Tossing Seeds by Superchunk, was released on CD, LP, and cassette. With this release Merge also forged a relationship with Touch and Go Records of Chicago, who have done an admirable job manufacturing and distributing the bulk of Merge's full-length releases since then. Since '92 Merge moved from one charming-yet-run-down office to another until 2001, when we finally made the move from Chapel Hill down the road to a fine old building all our own in historic Downtown Durham, NC. In 2004 Merge Records is celebrating its 15th birthday, and while our roster has changed, rotated, permutated and expanded over the last 15 years, the quality we look for in records as fans is still there in the music we put out on Merge. Thanks for listening!
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