Idaho, an open drive, serene with a plethora of crazy views and unique terrain. Constantly stopping off the side of the road to take pictures, rubbernecking, and taking detours whenever I would see a “Scenic View” or “Historic Site” sign, also made it a challenge to focus on browsing and streaming local talent online while on the way.
The search began in the capital, Boise, Idaho, searching via location-based tagging via social hashtags (#Idahoartist, #boisemusician, etc.) and recent/upcoming Facebook event posts. I came across a Facebook event of a live performance set at a cafe spot called High Note Cafe in Boise. The event was a few days out, so I initially was planning to rest and recharge in Boise, but that would have caused a conflict with the way I had budgeted out the rest of the trip. All the artists on the bill sounded awesome, so I still wanted to at least meet one of them. I wish I could’ve met and kicked it with all of the artists, but for the sake of the project and time, I chose the one artist that stood out to me the most, River Merrill.
He had two different type of projects out at the time, Weatherboy, an ambient and electronic project released in the beginning of 2018, followed by Unusual that summer, a more upbeat fun project that had more instrumentation and a blend of music genres. The sound differed between both projects, yet they both had this organic and experimental touch to them that caught my ear.
From mixing and mastering their own work, producing the instrumentals and even doing their own adlibs, River Merrill is a true renaissance man when It comes to making music. Their catalog has been creating a vibe persona of itself — layered with funky-soul rhythms, groovy and at times melancholic and dream-like, with a dominant retro element to it --- it works. A bit unorthodox at time, fusing electronic, rock and soul, their first two projects are perfect thought-provoking soundtracks; definitely fitting for backdrop in movie scenes, long drives or maybe just in the background while you draw, work on a creative project.
Combining elements from their first two projects, electronic, live instrumentation, surf-rock on hiphop beats, River Merrill becomes comfortable with his sound and lyrics in his third project released in 2019, Hard Reset. Now, pursuing their music career in Portland, Oregon, we're excited to see what's next.
Oh and aside from creating their own style of music, River Merrill is also a fire hiphop music producer.
