MERCI

Magma's next studio album would be 1984's Merci. Merci is the one Magma album which does not touch on the Kobaïa mythos. All the songs are sung in French or English, and the band went in more of a jazz-funk direction.

Merci opens on "Call from the Dark (Ooh Ooh Baby)", and it is so disorienting to hear Stella Vander use words I can actually understand. There's a smooth, laid-back funkiness to this synth-fueled song, and the brass arrangement is genuinely pleasant. The English vocals are so different from what I expect of Magma though that it is distracting. The music itself is fine, if a bit undistinguished and long-winded.

Up next is the only song off this album which would remain in their live repertoire, "Otis". It's a relaxed piece, and I find the French lyrics less distracting. Some of the piano and vocal arrangements are evocative of past Magma songs, such as "Dondaï". Near the song's end, it picks up energy and has a fun synth solo. "Otis" isn't a great song, but it's enjoyable enough.

Next comes "Do the Music", which is the most Magma-y song yet on the record. It features staccato brass and unorthodox vocal arrangements, and Christian Vander's drumming is sharp. This song sounds like an outtake from Attahk and is the best cut so far. This piece is  high-energy with a dose of Magma's signature weirdness. After this track comes a brief epilog/reprise of "Otis".

The opening brass arrangement of "I Must Run" sounds like a theme song from a 1980s sitcom, and the piano led-verses don't do much to dispel that perception. This one isn't very good.

The longest song on the album is "Eliphas Levi". Distant, lilting flutes and light hand-drums open this track up on a gentle, jazzy note. It meanders for its 11-minute runtime without much development or evolution, unfortunately. It acts as pleasant-enough background music, but there is nothing here to hold one's attention.

Merci ends on "The Night We Died", an apt name for the last song on what the band thought would be its last album. Piano and vocals lead this song, and I am pretty confident that the vocals are in Kobaïan, though divorced from the mythology and structured more like scat-singing.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2022/04/18/deep-dive-magma/