Orchid Session diary

When the recordings were completed we immediately started working with the cover layout and those things. I had been in contact with this photographer for quite a while, and it surfaced that he was doing graphic layouts as well, so we consulted him for this matter. The orchid on the cover was actually ordered by us from Holland for the shot.

For the band photo we went to my childhood place, Sörskogen, and we really were lucky as the sunset that evening, was probably the most beautiful one I had ever seen. We shot several cool shots that day, but those silhouette ones were the best.

So, everything was then more or less settled. We had all ideas about the layout finished, and the Cd disc we sent to England looked great! Unfortinately, it didn´t work our way at all. The lyric pages were totally the opposite to what we had expected. The white was black and vice versa. It looked awful! The only thing about that Cd that satisfied me was apart from the music, the cover and the back cover. The rest looked really shitty! The Cd itself was blue instead of black...how could it be?? Anyway, most people thought it looked great, to our big surprise!

Another real fuck-up was the mastering! Half of the "Requiem" track had been cut off and jointed with the last track. "The apostle in triumph"! We weren´t present during the mastering so we couldn´t prevent it, but this is one of the things that still bugs me today!

Anyhow, we were so pleased to have the album out anyway, and when the reviews came, we could do nothing but bow our heads in gratitude. Every single review were praising us! People went totally nuts bout the release! I still love " Orchid" and I actually listens to it once in a while. It was our first breath of life, and it has more or less brought us were we are today. My favourite track is "Forest of October" as it seemed to be reborn on the record. We had been rehearsing that track for years earlier with no special excitement, but on "Orchid" it really stands out as one of the greater Opeth compositions. Also, it is a great track to play live!

Orchid was recorded during March of 1994. * * *