Marek Arnold´s Artrock Project

The first solo album – released on Tempus Fugit in 2023 on CD (jewel case & sleeve pack) and as a limited double vinyl (sold out!)

„The Triple EP Collection“ followed in 2024, a limited album with various versions of the songs released as singles plus new, previously unreleased tracks.

Work on the new album „Marek Arnold’s Artrock Project II“ is already under way – it is due at the beginning of 2027.

The whole affair is opulent, it is unpredictable, it can be tender and loving, almost playfully cheerful, but it can also be dark and uncanny. MAREK ARNOLD sets off a veritable firework, and all it takes is one thing: the willingness to meet these varied soundscapes with open ears. ( translated from German )

LEGACY Magazin www.legacy.de

ALBUM "MAREK ARNOLD`S ARTROCK PROJECT"

After more than sixty albums with his bands and projects – among them „SEVEN STEPS TO THE GREEN DOOR“, „TOXIC SMILE“, „CYRIL“, „MANUEL SCHMID & MAREK ARNOLD“, as a member of the German art rock legend „STERN COMBO MEISSEN“ and of international bands such as UPF, FLAMING ROW and DAMANEK, as well as a guest on established projects like THE SAMURAI OF PROG, MELANIE MAU & MARTIN SCHNELLA, SUBSIGNAL, ARGOS, SOUL SECRET and SOUTHERN EMPIRE…

…the German saxophonist, keyboardist and producer MAREK ARNOLD presents his first solo album.
The idea for this album was born when Uwe Treitinger, organiser of the established Artrock Festival Reichenbach, had the idea of an „anthem“ for the festival, commissioned Marek with it, and the two of them approached well-known guest musicians.

The song STAY was released in 2018 and was received enthusiastically in the scene, played by prog and rock stations and sold well at the festival for charity. Again and again came the requests for a complete album.

So work on the album began in 2020. With the involvement of many international guest stars, above all from the progressive rock scene, new songs took shape between art rock and progressive metal, at times with jazzy elements, but always with the composer’s own unmistakable handwriting.

It was clear from the outset that each song should be realised with the musicians best suited to it. So alongside Marek Arnold’s long-standing musical partners, many international stars of the scene could be won for the album, and the list of musicians reads like a who’s who of the prog scene. Even so, a clear thread runs through the whole album. At around eighty minutes, the release sets out to be rather more than a first exclamation mark.

For mix and mastering Marek was again able to bring his friend and mixing guru Martin Schnella to his side. The artwork is by Janine Rojeß, the front and back cover were designed by the scene’s graphic icon Ed Unitsky.

A detailed account of how the album came about can be found here!

The making of the album …

ALBUM "THE TRIPLE EP COLLECTION"

From the album review by Roland Koch for music-info-net.com

„…now The Triple EP Collection (Tempus Fugit), from his hugely successful solo project Marek Arnold’s Artrock Project, arrives unexpectedly on silver disc. Here are the three complete digital 2023 EPs Stay (June), Papillon (September) and A Time Of Mystery (December). They were accompanied by three breathtaking AI-generated videos (plus Come Away With Me) on the best-known video platform and are now bundled onto one limited, packed CD.

Six tracks in all previously unreleased on CD, plus two brand-new pieces – fourteen compositions in total with almost eighty minutes of playing time. Tempus Fugit has pleasingly used the capacity of the silver disc to the full. For anyone counting carefully: only six tracks had appeared before on CD or vinyl, among them three parts of the twenty-six-minute epic Berlin 2049, in my view a masterpiece of progressive rock with every potential to become a classic. I love CDs this full and this good value – anyone who knows my nickname knows what I mean, because with around forty-three minutes of material never before released on CD you are already getting a complete album. Anyone who already owns the remaining thirty-five minutes of the first MAARP solo album as vinyl, digipak or jewel case edition gets these six tracks on top. The lucky owners of the 300 blue vinyls are the winners here, as they now also get six tracks of the double vinyl on CD. Tempus Fugit plans well as a label, as always, but also for the buyers of physical media, whose numbers keep falling and which therefore grow ever more expensive as individual items. Chapeau to Dirk Jacob, who like a Medusa always keeps an eye on artists, buyers, label, production and retailers…
I do not want to go into every single track of The Triple EP Collection here; we reported at length on the album Marek Arnold’s Artrock Project (MAARP) in 2023. I wrote at the time: careful, risk of addiction!! And I felt the creeping withdrawal and the goosebumps setting in all over again while listening through. What fantastic, timeless compositions…

This collection of fourteen first-class compositions is of interest to the fan and the newcomer alike. You are not buying a pig in a poke here, but world-champion rock from Germany at a fair price. Anyone with a heart for all the more than sixty artists involved and for the small but excellent independent label Tempus Fugit, and who also wants to treat themselves, should buy and enjoy this product, which is of quality in every respect.“ ( translated from German )

The creation of the album ...

Marek Arnold´s Artrock Project

Marek Arnold

comp. / lyrics / prod.,
keyboards, saxophones ( s / a / t / b ),
clarinet, recorders ( s / a / t ), venova, xaphoon,
seaboard, electronic sax., backing vocals, programming

VOCALS

Peter Jones ( Tiger Moth Tales, Camel, Colin Tench Project, Red Bazar )
Arno Menses ( Subsignal, Sieges Even )
Patrik Lundström ( Ritual / Kaipa )
Larry B. ( Toxic Smile, CYRIL, Stern Combo Meissen )
Manuel Schmid ( Stern Combo Meissen )
Anne Trautmann ( seven steps to the green door )
Melanie Mau & Martin Schnella ( Flaming Row )
Kiri Marie Geile ( Flaming Row )
Annemarie Schmidt ( ssttgd )
Jana Pöche ( ssttgd )
Andre Weller ( ssttgd )
George Andrade ( ssttgd )
Zeynah
Steve Bühring
Eric Castiglio
Wilandes Choir Wilsdruff, conducted by Helmar Federowski

DRUMS & PERC

Marco Minnemann ( Steven Wilson, The Aristocrats, The Sea Within, The Mute Gods, …)
Craig Blundell ( Frost*, Pendragon, Steven Wilson, Steve Hacket… )
Sebastian Lanser ( Panzerballett, Obscura, … )
John Macaluso ( Y.Malmsteen, Symphony X, ARK, Michael Romeo, James LaBrie,…)
Niklas Kahl ( Lord of the lost, Flaming Row )
Ulf Reinhardt ( ssttgd )
Dominique „Gaga“ Ehlert ( Dark Suns, … )
Simon Schröder ( Persona, Melanie Mau & Martin Schnella, ISSUN)

BASS

Laurence Cottle ( Black Sabbath, The Alan Parsons Project, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks, Clapton, …)
Lars Lehmann ( Freelancer, Solo-Artist)
Robert Brenner ( Toxic Smile, ssttgd, Stern Combo Meissen )
Yentz Strutz ( Crystal Pallace )
Marco Bernard ( The Samurai of Prog )
Piotr Witkowski ( Collage )
Denis Strassburg ( CYRIL )
Martin Schnella ( Flaming Row )
Martin Fankhänel ( The Laterizer, ssttgd )

GUITAR

Martin Fankhänel ( The Laterizer, ssttgd )
Martin Schnella ( Flaming Row )
Marcella Arganese ( Ubi Major, Mr. Punch )
Luke Machin ( The Tangent, Maschine, Francis-Dunnery-band )
Kalle Wallner ( RPWL, Blind Ego )
Gary Chandler ( JADIS )
Jane Getter ( Jane Getter Premonition )
Jörg Sweikowski ( Chorin Night )
Stephan Pankow ( ssttgd, Toxic Smile )

KEYS, ORGAN & SYNTH

Derek Sherinian ( Dream Theater, Planet X, Sons of apollo, Black Country Communion )
Adam Holzman ( Miles Davis, Steven Wilson, Michel Petrucciani, … )
Sean Timms ( Unitopia, Southern Empire, DAMANEK )
Alex Grünwald ( Münchener Freiheit )
Marius Leicht ( POLIS, Martin Miller Session Band )
Antony Kalugin ( Karaffen, sunchild )
Luca Di Gennaro ( Soul Secret )

STRINGS, WIND & BRASS

Steve Unruh – violin ( Resistor, The Samurai of Prog, Unitopia, UPF )
Markus Dreßler– violin, viola, string arr.
Carmen Dreßler – cello
Steven Tailor – flute ( Toxic Smile´s classic extension orchestra )
Luis Márquez – Oboe
Claude Lumle – Horn
Yakiv Tsvietinskyi – trumpet