Behind the name Margin hides the Berlin musician Lutz Meinert, a musician who has released two CD's with the band For Your Pleasure, namely Scattered Pages (1993) and Timeless (2000). From 2012 he focused himself on Margin and released Psychedelic Teatime in 2014. On this album Lutz is the person who did almost everything by himself. He only got help from backing singer Carola Meinert who sang on Psychedelic Underground - The Long Trip and Landscapes On The Sky. The other musician that can be heard on this release is Arne Spekat. He played the acoustic guitar on A Mysterious Cup Of Tea and Landscapes On The Sky. Right from the start you can hear what kind of music influenced Lutz to make music himself. It's most of all the psychedelic rock and progressive rock of Pink Floyd that shines through on Psychedelic Teatime. The electric guitar and keyboards are the instruments that dictate the music on his self written compositions. Compositions which sound rather strong. Most of all the opening piece A Mysterious Cup Of Tea is of a very high level. During the almost twenty four minutes of music you go through a musical trip which takes you from the psychedelic rock of Pink Floyd to the krautrock of Grobschnitt. The albums Rockpommel's Land (1977) and Solar Music (1978) from the last mentioned band came to mind several times, mainly by the use of the Mellotron and the strong bass parts. Unfortunately the second track is of a lower level. The vocals are mainly to blame because I did find them a bit too catchy on Psychedelic Underground - The Short Trip. The next track Landscapes On The Sky is a beautiful melodic ballad with again references to early Pink Floyd. The level of fantastic progressive rock music increases on Last Exit To Pluto. Again Pink Floyd comes to the surface thanks to the Rick Wright kind of organ parts, Roger Waters kind of bass parts and the Nick Mason kind of drum parts. Thanks to the copious use of Mellotron and the strong bass parts a link with the German krautrock band Grobschnitt can be made once again. Moreover this ten minutes long composition can be described as a mix of progressive rock, psychedelic and space rock. The final track Psychedelic Underground - The Long Trip is a kind of copy of the Short Trip version. The same kind of catchy vocals can be heard. During the opening, the middle section and last part of this ten minutes long version are some extra instrumental parts added which did not really bring the song to a higher level. Therefore you might ask the question if these extra ten minutes of music were needed. With or without the last track added on Psychedelic Teatime it's not difficult to conclude that this release is an album worth listening to. Most of all if you are a fan of Pink Floyd or like Grobschnitt you will certainly hear things you are going to enjoy. I am convinced that this album does not disappear in my CD collection. Hopefully it will find a place in your collection too! **** Henri Strik (edited by Astrid de Ronde) Where to buy? |
