"Orchid Bloom" is a single from Brooklyn-via-San Franscisco trio Lemonade's (Callan Clendenin, Ben Steidel and Alex Pasternak) third album Minus Tide (2014), a perfect Balearic track for a lively midnight summer beach party, the after-party, and the chillout session the next morning. Driven by relatively emotionally intelligent lyrics and "glittery synth arpeggios and four-on-the-floor rhythms" (Fred Thomas, AllMusic.com), the track stands out by virtue of its complex rhythms and club-friendly accessibility.
As Andrew Hannah notes, Minus Tide stands apart from other clubhouse-tailored tracks in its ability to distill multiple facets of an idealized vacation (the mindless dancing and partying, the moments of introspection, the melodies, pulses and beats you can't help but move to, the memorable moments of intimacy): "it's a record which merges emotions and energies like the best twenty-four hours of holiday time you've ever had".
The song's lyrics are arresting enough ('What you do at night/ Petals open wide'), although they don't really linger or resonate once the track's well-crafted melodies and intricate dance production comes to an end. But perhaps that's the point of the song, to capture the visceral beauty of the ephemeral - to evoke the sweet, fleeting nothings that club-goers whisper into each other's ears as they swirl in the dancefloor's heady atmosphere.
