Merge Releases 20th Anniversary Box Set

Merge Records have come a long way in 20 years, rising up from spooling cassettes in 1989 and pressing early releases of Superchunk to being a mainstay leader among indie labels in the new millennium.

Merge Records have come a long way in 20 years, rising up from spooling cassettes in 1989 and pressing early releases of Superchunk to being a mainstay leader among indie labels in the new millennium. To mark the their two-decade anniversary next year, the Durham, N.C. label is planning an extensive dip into its ever-reliable catalog in the form of a 14-disc box set called Score! Merge Records: The First 20 Years, custom-curated by a slew of artists who will all handpick their selections, as well as original artwork and music videos for each successive volume. Available only to Score! subscribers enrolled between the September 8th start-date next month through the end of this year, CD pressings will be kept to a bare minimum and distributed throughout 2009. The first two volumes will be curated by R.E.M. founder Peter Buck, Phil Morrison, director of Junebug, which was set in North Carolina, and a handful of Superchunk videos. Others slated for the remaining volumes include Amy Poehler, David Byrne, author Jonathan Lethem, Marcel Dzama (artist behind the cover art for Beck’s Guero) and Momofuku chef David Chang, to name a few. According to Merge, the Score! project will benefit charitable causes, all of which will be chosen by the curators.