ORCHIDS

Once again, I am weirdly honored and delighted to be the first to review another album by the very excellent and, here, stupidly understated Marco Minnemann. Seriously, if you're coming here and you haven't heard his first two albums, Go listen to them. They are both a helluva lot of fun. And so excellently performed. Big shock! And I won't waste time to say this: not so much virtuosity or progressive tendency with this one (I'll explain below). And so here we are, with Marco's third solo effort, Orchid, released 2002. I went digging for some album information just a little bit as I listened, and it really is odd how little there is out there for the credits/personnel.

And once again, as already witnessed on his first and second albums, I hear ZAPPA in the bones, but really mostly on the opener, one of the few clear highlights, "Fields Of Orchids". It's hard to explain, but a lot of it is this free Jazz Fusion at play (again, in them bones). Free to be what it wants to be. "Fields...", for instance, feels like a latter-day KING CRIMSON tune, too. Very nice. Rhythmically steady and a clear melody (I mean, the guitar tone will be very familiar, too).

Even when the goods don't feel 100% "delivered", it's still satisfyingly performed and produced (noticeably for a good half the tracks, anyways). Weaker tracks to my ears like "Bleeding" and "Don't Care" still have something to offer. The former track actually, toward the end, reminded me of PORCUPINE TREE. So, to clarify, I can say here and now, not even leaving the frontend of the album, this is a lot less satisfying to me when compared to The Green Mindbomb (1998) or Comfortably Homeless (2000).

Really, I think this was all purposeful [in editing this, I know this to be true]. It's a different focus. And really, if you've heard those albums, we already know that Marco is coming from a bunch of different directions stylistically. It's exciting, because you really won't know what you get until you're in it--regardless of whatever this album was supposed to be, I'm still a damn fan of Marco! According to his website ""ORCHIDS" is a very intimate production. It's all about authentic, true relationships and the music runs on pure feelings." It's more singer-songwriter in nature and he admits also "It is not complex virtuos[sic] technique".

"Fall" is another low-go track. Lyrically very personal and feeling. Some tasty lickage, but limited staying power. This continues on and the middle section, to my ears, is generally just really weak. Not a whole lot going on here.

The next time I perked up was with the female-vox-led, very pretty "Scheme 2". Such a delight after all that came before, to be honest. It has seemed that whenever he's had women take lead vocals (on this and the past releases), other elements of the songs can shine. I suppose that makes sense. Unfortunately, to me, this wasn't repeated. "Un-bear" showed promise, and perhaps it could be for fans of Chris Cornell or something. "Minefield"'s middle section was a fun listen, but it is just one of those situations where it can't just save the song with a wave of the hand. Certainly any strengths throughout the album couldn't have saved the whole.

I have nothing further to say. Just listen to his first two albums, at least (instead).

Orchids by Marco Minnemann is simply said one of my all-time favorite albums. Beautiful atmospheric melancholic pop. If you listen to this there isn't much musical fireworks happening and you might not even guess what Marco is able to by judging his drums on this one. And that is one of the reasons I love this album. It makes me feel a lot. The beautiful vocals by Fabio Trentini, Marco's ex-girlfriend (sorry I forgot her name) and Mario Brinkmanns synth work give me goosebumps. My favorite songs are Fields of Orchids, Don't Care, Doin Blind, Lose My Sin, Erase My Feel... Pretty much every song is good. I once spoke to Marco after a concert about this as it stands out in comparison to his other albums. He said he was in a weird phase in life when he wrote this. Maybe I am too that's why I get it so well.

In my oppinion this is the best album Marco has done so far.