Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Minnemann, Marco
Label: Lazy Bones Recordings
Release: 2014
Length: 79:17
Rating: 5/5
Marco Minnemann is one of those one-of-a-kind musical rascals that absolutely everyone on this planet wants to play with. If we tried to list where and with whom Marco has worked or is still working, it would be easier to list who he hasn’t played with. Let’s just run through a few current things real quick. There’s the »wildly deranged trio« packed with brilliant musical trickery, The Aristocrats; then there’s the fact that Marco is part of Joe Satriani’s backing band (in the studio and on stage), as well as that of Procupine Tree mastermind and musical genius Steven Wilson. A year ago he put out an album as part of the Levin Minnemann Rudess adventure, and he was almost, with one foot already in the door, the new member of Dream Theater (replacing the runaway Portnoy),… So if you’ve known Marco Minnemann mainly as a drumming ace until now, it’s high time you got acquainted with his versatility. You’ll feel it most honestly and genuinely while listening to his new solo studio effort called »EEPS«.
»EEPS« is yet another textbook document of this one-of-a-kind multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and producer. How do you pin this album down? The easiest thing to say about »EPPS« is that it’s basically a musical conglomerate of everything Marco Minnemann has done, past and present. You’ll hear plenty of kinship with the musical character of the artists Marco is connected with and works with one way or another. The dude played absolutely everything himself on »EEPS« (drums, keys, bass guitars, guitars, sampling, programming). He also contributed all the vocals himself. We mentioned the LMR project earlier! The opener Cheap As Fuck And Awsome As Hell is really Marco’s solo spin on the track Marcopolis from the LMR album. Going by the title, it’s obvious who wrote it. EEPS has an inverted version of it, inverted to the point that it’s practically a brand-new song. Right behind it comes the track OC DC. Picture drunk eighties King Crimson trying to play one of David Bowie’s early rock ‘n’ roll tunes from the Ziggy Stardust or Alladin Sane era, coated in a veil of surf bite. Wildly fun, cheeky and mischievous to the extreme. Behind it all, of course, lurks a parody of AC/DC.
The music on »EEPS« is all about erasing genre borders. It’s not hard to find levers on the album that pull hard toward what Frank Zappa once did long ago (Synthetic Swans), or a bunch of avant-garde-savvy adventures that, in free-jazz forms, get close to the artistry of King Crimson to what King Crimson do and have done, along with the whole constellation of side projects this band has spawned. Proof that »EEPS« is a true reflection of Marco Minnnemann’s current musical perception can be found in the points of the album that, in terms of composition, production and even the melody of the lead motifs, pull toward Steven Wilson’s approach. With one crucial difference: Marco is basically a positive, optimistic mirror image of Wilson’s gloominess and constant complaining. One such song is When I Was Gone, which could easily have come out as the album’s lead single and gotten heavy rotation on the radio. Obvious comes close to it too (with a completely shattered outro of the kind Steve Vai would surely have used as well). So you can already tell that »EEPS« isn’t just an »escape« into avant-garde complication, but a superbly balanced album built from songs that, in most cases, brilliantly combine two elementary approaches to musical expressionism. One is the approach of shaping tight, concise motifs; the other is loosened-up experimental artistic detours that you can’t slap a genre label on, only the tag eclectic artistry. Both approaches have grown together superbly on this album. Following a homegrown Minnemann recipe. In a musical plexus like that, guitarists like Andy Summers, David Thorne or Robert Fripp would have no trouble understanding each other.
A mischievously lucid note is a mandatory part of Minnemann’s musical expression. »EEPS« is a journey through a unique, homegrown stance of eclectic musical confession of total freewheeling, into a world of unique musical fusion where the word »forbidden« was never invented, because actions that would call for prohibition simply don’t exist there. Among the full eighteen tracks on Minnemann’s new album sits the integral 11-minute epic Sushi Cat Doll, where Marco basically strolls through many genres in one go. As if he’d merged all the album’s songs into a single one. From astral, far-gazing moments where vocoder use flows into curtains of synths, to the sudden arrival of a »Gilmouresque« guitar solo, then a charming and totally unexpected pop-rock interlude commanded by Marco’s vocals, and then right back into an esoteric drift that could unsettle even fans of Porcupine Tree, while the last third of the song is again reserved for a string of free-jazz forms. This track sums up the essence of »EEPS« most vividly.
Marco builds subtly woven atonal lines into the compact framework of the songs, something he obviously mastered thoroughly while hanging out with musical companions connected one way or another to Frank Zappa (Mike Keneally) and/or King Crimson (Trey Gunn, Tony Levin). A great example of this is the track Painter. And of course you can’t skip the drumming either, which is teeming with polyrhythmic fringes inside the songs, only adding to the album’s spontaneous and unpredictable musical development.
Let’s not let this review grow too long. »EEPS« is an album tailor-made for every demanding music gourmet who seeks out and knows how to appreciate musical eclecticism and artistic freewheeling that doesn’t skimp on exploratory experimentation. It’s an album of perfect balance, since the element of avant-garde musical wizardry never overpowers motivic compactness and definition; instead the two coexist in exemplary symbiosis. The album runs almost 80 minutes. And don’t worry. There isn’t a single moment that steals your time. That means Marco pulled out of his sleeve a strictly selected batch of material from everything he probably has sitting in his archives right now, enough for five or six new solo studio albums. »EEPS« is an album that can’t and won’t bore you. It’s an honest and one-of-a-kind visa into the multifaceted world of Marco Minnemann’s musical genius, which, true to the D.I.Y. principle, only confirms that Marco is one of those rare complete musical wizards who can and do achieve absolutely everything in the studio on their own. Once the album gets under your skin, it won’t want to leave your player. You can be sure of that.
Line-up
Marco Minnemann – all instruments, vocals
Production
Scott Schorr & Marco Minnemann
Track list
- Cheap as F**k and Awesome As Hell
- OC DC
- Eeps
- Live Ghost
- Soul Dance
- Obvious
- Right on Time and Out of Tune
- Sushi Cat Doll
- Sunshine
- The Split
- Painter
- Dead Ghost
- Douche
- Synthetic Swans
- When I Was Gone
- 360 Degrees (Bonus exclusive to CD)
- Talking About LMR (Bonus exclusive to CD)
- Villain Vultures (Bonus exclusive to CD)
