{"id":3038,"date":"2019-09-13T20:32:28","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T19:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=3038"},"modified":"2019-09-21T12:18:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T11:18:55","slug":"magma-online-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=3038","title":{"rendered":"Magma Online Exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a companion piece to his MAGMA article in Shindig!<\/em>Magazine #95 (The Stooges cover) WARREN HATTER digs deep into their back catalogue and finds 7 essential albums along with some MAGMA family gems.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Magma in seven records<\/p>\n

\"Magama
\n1. Magma (1970, called Koba\u00efa in some editions)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Magma arrived fully formed in many ways. That logo! The alien language! The songs are often beautiful and subtle, the brass is outstanding, and this is the album of theirs that most wears its influences on its sleeve. It\u2019s written by someone who loves Coltrane and Bartok, and it\u2019s the only one that you can put in a box marked \u2018jazz-rock\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Magma
\n2. Mekan\u00efk Destrukt\u00efw Kommand\u00f6h (1973)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jannick Top arrives with his retuned bass, Stella takes on vocals, and Magma\u2019s martial sound is born. MDK, as it is often called, is partly recorded at Manor Studios, with Mike Oldfield present, around the time he is recording Tubular Bells, which Christian Vander later claimed includes a refrain from a song Magma rehearse at the time.<\/p>\n

\"Magma
\n3. K\u00f6hntark\u00f6sz (1974)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This story extends Magma\u2019s mythology back to ancient Egypt and the music obliges. For this recording, Magma jettison wind instruments in favour of synths, which makes for their most sombre work yet. This is the Magma music that was in Jodorovsky\u2019s mind when he wanted them, with Pink Floyd, to soundtrack his never-made epic of Frank Herbert\u2019s Dune.<\/p>\n

\"Magma
\n4. \u00dcd\u00fc \u1e80\u00fcd\u00fc (1976)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Top has left and re-joined, bringing with him a change in feel, as his vision merges with Christian Vander\u2019s. This is VanderTop, which turns out to be the sound of a band breaking up. There\u2019s a move back to shorter songs, but a whole side is dedicated to Top\u2019s \u2018De Futura\u2019, driven by the most visceral earthy bass yet heard.<\/p>\n

\"Magma
\n5. Attahk (1978)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cover by Giger, most famous for his work on Alien around the same time, provides a dystopian facade, but this is mostly a joyous album by a new band. They turn up the funk, often with two bass parts across a range of styles, including swing and spiritual. Significantly, longstanding vocalist Klaus Blasquiz cedes lead vocal duties to Christian Vander.<\/p>\n

\"Magma
\n6. R\u00e9trospective Vol. 1 & 2 (1981)<\/strong><\/p>\n

It feels wrong to include a live set in any artist\u2019s essential albums, but the version here of \u2018Theusz Hamtaahk\u2019, recorded in Paris in 1980, is incredible. You go through every human emotion in its 36 minutes, with playing ranging from the most delicate to overwhelming. Stella explains why this is considered the definitive version: \u201cWe did a lot of overdubs, so it\u2019s almost a studio recording\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Magma
\n7. Z\u00ebss (Le Jour De N\u00e9ant) (2019)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once more discarding the synths, Magma extensively re-work an old piece for the modern era. Hypnotic and relentless, with an ecstatic climax, it is at times bleak, and hits home emotionally through R\u00e9mi Dumoulin\u2019s skilful arrangement of the Prague Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n

\n

Deeper Underground: the best albums by the Magma family.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Underground music from 70s and early 80s France is as exciting as Krautrock, but much less well known in the UK and US. Here are some of the gems \u2013 the ones involving people who have been through Magma\u2019s revolving doors. Many of these albums were out of print for a long time, but all except Drones have had recent reissues.<\/p>\n

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1. Univeria Zekt – The Unnamables<\/strong> (1972)<\/p>\n

This is Magma in disguise, trying out slightly different approaches over a shorter format than on their then recently released second album (2, now known as 1001\u00b0 Centigrades). It\u2019s mostly jazz-rock excursions sung in English, and this one is for the completists. Everything else in this list is among the best albums you\u2019ve probably never heard.<\/p>\n

\"Nyl:
\n2. Nyl – Nyl (1976)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mighty Jannick Top, with his demonic bass, had given Magma the distinctive sound they evolved for MDK and, two years on, he plays on the key tracks of perhaps the best prog album to emerge from France. There is a hint of the blues in places, rare, in the French underground. Just a hint, though, and sometimes in 5\/4 time. It appears on Urus records, run by Heldon founder, Richard Pinhas, the French Underground\u2019s most important catalyst.<\/p>\n

\"Laurent
\n3. Laurent Thibault \u200e\u2013 Mais On Ne Peut Pas R\u00eaver Tout Le Temps (1978)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Self-producing here, one of Magma\u2019s founder members plays guitar and bass to create one of the great French albums: an indefinable, restless instrumental rock that moves on to the next mood once you think you\u2019ve understood it.<\/p>\n

\"Weidorje
\n4. Weidorje – Weidorje (1978)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Named after a track on Magma\u2019s 1976 \u00dcd\u00fc \u1e80\u00fcd\u00fc, which Bernard Paganotti had written and Patrick Gauthier played, with a cover drawn by Klaus Blasquiz, this spin-off is such a powerful development of Magma\u2019s signature style that it threatens to be Frasier to Magma\u2019s Cheers. It\u2019s both hypnotic and martial, even brutal at times. But the band split before recording another album.<\/p>\n

\"Univers
\n5. Univers Z\u00e9ro – H\u00e9r\u00e9sie (1979)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founder Daniel Denis was briefly Magma\u2019s drummer, playing MDK live so that Christian Vander could concentrate on singing but found his element here, seven years later. Parts of this are as scary as music gets, as orchestral rock, baroque and the avant-garde collide. Univers Zero were Belgian, but this is a glimpse at the French underground\u2019s obsession with the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft that, if you like that sort of thing, was further developed by Shub Niggurath in 1982.<\/p>\n

\"Jean-Philippe
\n6. Jean-Philippe Goude – Drones (1980)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Goude himself was never a member of Magma, but was part of Weidorje, most of whom had a role in Drones, along with legendary Magma vocalist Klaus Blasquiz. This album veers from subtly funky Zeuhl to esoteric electronica \u2013 it\u2019s the moody sibling to B\u00e9b\u00e9 Godzilla.<\/p>\n

\"Patrick
\n7. Patrick Gauthier – B\u00e9b\u00e9 Godzilla (1981)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Magma\u2019s 1980s keyboardist is also a graduate of French underground greats Heldon. And he calls in a few favours for this, including members of both groups, so the album features a different line-up for every song. It\u2019s not as dark as you might expect, cosmic repetition giving way often enough to uptempo melody.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a companion piece to his MAGMA article in Shindig!Magazine #95 (The Stooges cover) WARREN HATTER digs deep into their back catalogue and finds 7 essential albums along with some MAGMA family gems. Magma in seven records 1. Magma (1970, called Koba\u00efa in some editions) Magma arrived fully formed in many ways. That logo! The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3038"}],"version-history":[{"count":-2,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}