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| Almost 13 years after the end of the phenomenon that
was Milwaukee's Black Orchid (originally known as Black Orchid), I was
delighted to find so much wonderful material to work with for The Chronicles
releases. I had almost completely forgotten many of the recordings and
was surprised at how fresh some of it still felt. None of it sounded old
school at all, and I was really pleased I had been able to capture so much
from the band. |
| I was introduced to Craig (Raig Macher) by a mutual friend
in July 1993. Craig had been working with Sven Korth as Shadow Orchid but
Sven was planning to move to Seattle, which left Craig looking for someone
new to work with. The first time Craig and I turned on our equipment Sven
showed up and just couldn't resist joining in. The session went so well
that Sven delayed his move to Seattle. I managed to convince Craig and
Sven to rename the band Black Orchid, after one of my favourite comics,
and our recording history began. |
| At the time we were all listening to industrial music,
and in our innocence we began to formulate our own experimental sound that
has since been compared to Throbbing Gristle and The Legendary Pink Dots.
But the sound of MBO wasn't what we were really all about; MBO was about
change and emotional expression. We'd play continuously for 1-2 hours at
a time, moving back and forth between songs, melodies and rhythms. Our
vocals became more than just any one of us singing; it was the interplay
between three lyrical lines (oftentimes completely unrelated) that gave
us that dynamicism (BAM!). |
| We did as many shows during our short history as our
schedules could manage. Being an experimental improvisational performance
band, we preferred on the whole to fashion new songs and melodies in front
of our audiences, but the growth of our cult following convinced us to
re-visit a few of our more popular pieces, notably In a Heartbeat,
Mindfire, Brains, and Felicia. Our fans were always
excited by the theatrical touches in our performances. We were lucky enough
to have guest appearances at select shows by Alan Zorn who added some great
additional rhythms and Erich Ternes who brought his violin in (which I
effected and distorted). Some of my best stage memories are of MBO, particularly
the live simulcast of In a Heartbeat. |
| The band's last performance was in late November 1994.
In December we all parted as friends and wished each other well as we headed
off; Sven finally made his move to Seattle, Craig took a job writing techno
loops for commercial ads, and I delved deeper into engineering and production.
I was given the honour and responsibility of keeping MBO's surviving original
master recordings, and managed to release two limited edition CDs, Traveling
on Dark Frequencies and Live and Rare. |
| In working on The Chronicles, I returned to the original
archives editing and remastering all the material from the original recordings.
The very best of MBO is contained on Chronicles One, Two,
and Three, and I hope all our fans are as thrilled to finally hear
this material as I am. |
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