OFF: Magma?

[Stephan Forstner]

>and for Magma fans we now have in the FANTASTIC Magma and Jannick Top set of
>three archive CD's of all previously unreleased live and studio tracks from
>the mid seventies, with four massive versions of 'De Futura' across the
>three CD's - grab 'em now as deleted on 31st Decmber.

1.  VanderTop - 1976 Paris Live (with 'Music of the Spheres' prev. unrel.?)
2.  JannickTop - Soleil d'Ork (with Magma alums guesting)
3.  Sporadic Utopic Orchestra - Nancy 75

(More info at utopic-records.com - site doesn't seem to be up at the moment
though).

Deleted already?! They just came out sometime in October I think! I was
going to post a review of them in the new year after properly absorbing
them, but sounds like that will be too late now, so I'll just make a few
notes below. As for 4 versions of De Futura (plus a shorter earlier track
that would later develop into DF) - that is almost two hours of H.P
Lovecraft's Evil Deep Space Ritual - most of you probably already know if
the thought of that has you slavering like a Shoggoth on the trail of some
Old Ones, or staring in slack-jawed stupefecation, or running gibbering for
the exits with your hands over your ears and your sanity in shreds.

>I wouldn't mind someone relating
>their opinions of what are the more valuable ones (keeping in mind that I
>don't like the vocal-chorus-dominated MDK as much as the Udu Wudu-manic bass
>style of Magma w/Top)...

Then you're in luck because, seeing as how they're out on Top's own label,
they heavily feature the man in question. Alongside the intense jazz-fusion
and the Wagnerian opera tributaries that fed the stream of molten Magma,
there was a third important current, a sort of Lovecraftian elder
mythos/horror soundtrack type of approach which reached its culmination in
Udu Wudu, and which, based on these 3 discs, was largely due to the input of
Top. At its best it was eerie and intense and impressive and scary too - at
its worst it bordered on Munsters-style cheesiness (the old TV show, not
Muenster cheese). Also based on these 3 discs, Top's take on this style was
definitely in the first category - it is when CVander started to concentrate
on writing this type of material that the cheese crept in (Troller Tanz for
example, not one of my favorite Magma tunes).

The VanderTop live 76 disc has almost the same lineup as the great Magma
Live (75) set, and the centerpiece is the 2 20+ minute songs La Musique Des
Spheres and De Futura. The 1st (LMDS) is I believe prev. unrel., though
versions of it also appear on the other 2 discs. And that one track is
fantastic, almost by itself making the disc a must-have IMHO. It starts with
an eerie space-music synth section, 7 minutes or so, folowed by an intense,
fairly melodic vocal section for another 5 minutes or so, and closes with
what is essentially a 10-minute bass solo that really has to be heard to be
believed. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, that I have previously heard from Top (or
just about anyone else for that matter) has the impact of this stretch of
music, not even De Futura comes close. I will put up a sample of it but that
will have to wait until January unfortunately. The disc as a whole falls a
bit short of being Magma Live part 2, though, as it seems to be overall much
less of a group effort - they were billed as VanderTop instead of Magma, and
everyone else is relegated to a more-or-less support role, at least on the
Top compositions - but it's still quite good.

Soleil D'Ork is already one of my favorite Magma-related discs - nothing on
it quite matches the aforementioned LMDS bass solo (actually just about
nothing anywhere does), but the disc as a whole is outstanding. Some points
of interest - a shorter track that would later have its theme extended into
De Futura (Epithecantropus Erectus), longer versions of some tracks that
were cut down for release on Magma albums or singles (the title track and
Mekanik Machine), and a fantastic (apparently the first) take on De Futura
which manages to sound both much more industrial (many-tracked soundscapes
and a monotonous percussive beat) and much more rock (Richard Pinhas'
guitar) than future versions. RP doesn't do anything too wild, but by having
the main themes played on guitar simultaneously w/ the bass the overall
effect is rather different. At the moment this is probably my favorite
version of DF, though YMMV. Also present, a later version of LMDS which
comprises only the 1st space-synth section with drummers from Dakar playing
percussion (I think - all liner notes are in French, and I get the gist of
them, though not all the details) and several tracks of varying styles
(eerie synth space-music to instense Magma-style pieces) that appear here
for the first time, all uniformly good IMHO.

Finally, the SUO disc has 2 versions of De Futura from sequential days (a
rehearsal and the live show) which are described I believe as the 1st public
performance of the piece - 18 musicians are present, including most of the
usual suspects from Magma. I haven't listened to this one a lot yet, but I
think it may end up being just as essential as the other two. It has a set
of bonus tracks from Magma (74) and VanderTop (76) as well, one of which is
LMDS again.

Stephan

P.S. I will be going off-line until the middle of January, so I'd like to
take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Joyous Yuletide,
a Happy Solstice, other appropriate religious holiday greetings, or a
generalized non-denominational wish for Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards
Men, and here's hoping the New Year is a whole lot better than the last
third of this one.