HW: Magma review

[J Strobridge]

I found this on another mailing list but since it is semi-Hawkwind
related and fairly quiet here just now I thought folk might be
interested to read it.  Sounds like they are worth catching if anyone
sees an advert for the tour in time.

jill

> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Rock review, Magma at Martyrs
> By Rick Reger
> SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE
> Sunday, May 30, 1999
>
> Move over George Lucas! You're not the only galactic mythmaker in town.
>
> On Friday night at Martyrs, French prog-rock legends Magma took a room of
> diehard fans on a remarkable round-trip voyage to the planet Kobaia. While
> the journey may have been short on cinematic special effects, it featured
> nearly two hours of some of the most strangely beautiful and powerful
> music this part of the cosmos has ever heard.
>
> Magma is the brainchild of drummer Christian Vander, who formed the band
> in the early '70s to perform a vast, futuristic opus he had conceived
> about the spiritual, ecological decline of Earth and a group of
> enlightened ex-Earthlings and their utopian society on the planet Kobaia.
> Over the course of Magma's first 10 records, Vander detailed his visionary
> Earth-Kobaia conflict in a blend of complex, highly original music and
> hazy, non-sequential narrative that proved bewildering to some listeners
> and downright daft to others.
>
> But over time, fans of adventurous music have increasingly come to regard
> Vander's Kobaian cycle as something more than an extravagant prog-era
> fairy tale. As a result, Vander reconvened Magma several years ago to
> revisit the band's eccentric '70s oeuvre.
>
> That oeuvre was brought brilliantly to life at Martyrs by a seven-piece
> Magma that displayed a virtuosity and commitment to music more commonly
> seen at the Jazz Showcase or Orchestra Hall than at rock clubs.
>
> The twin highlights of the band's set were "Kohntarkosz" and "Mekanik
> Destruktiw Kommandoh"--two half-hour chapters in the Kobaian saga that
> brimmed with sweeping grandeur and singularly rugged rhythmic intensity.
> Neither "songs" nor suites, both pieces unfolded one or two musical motifs
> into ever-shifting sets of variations that encompassed gently melodic
> interludes and volcanic crescendos.
>
> Although Magma's music incorporates elements of jazz fusion, classical
> cantatas and progressive rock, Vander has fused those influences into a
> vernacular as unique and colorful as the Kobaian language he invented for
> his lyrics. Wordless, three-part vocal harmonies floated above rippling
> electric piano figures; thick dissonant chord clusters punctuated martial
> rhythms, giving way to grand operatic codas.
>
> But it was the almost religious fervor that the band brought to this music
> that made the set so memorable. Vocalists Stella Vander, Antoine Paganotti
> and Isabelle Feuillebois articulated both abstract vocalise passages and
> sang Kobaian narratives with devotional rapture.
>
> Guitarist James McGaw and pianist Emmanuel Borghi were no less focused,
> but it was the rhythm section that virtually stole the show. Vander deftly
> sprayed the music with explosive sheets of sound from his drums, giving
> the pieces a tangible, physical presence. And bassist Philippe Bussonnet
> laced the set with lines of both liquid gentility and gut-rumbling
> thunder.
>
> It's a testament to Vander's creativity and his band's skill that Magma
> could create such a sometimes-otherworldly musical experience using
> nothing more than standard instruments. And it's safe to say that
> virtually everyone on Friday night's journey is eagerly looking forward to
> another ride.

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J.D.Strobridge at ed.ac.uk                         eset08 at holyrood.ed.ac.uk
                                                ELIJSA at srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk
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