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Magma - Christian Vander: Tristan et Iseult [Aka: Ẁurdah Ītah] (OST) CD (album) cover

CHRISTIAN VANDER: TRISTAN ET ISEULT [AKA: ẀURDAH ĪTAH] (OST)

Magma

 

Zeuhl

4.17 | 383 ratings

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The Quiet One
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Theusz Hamtaahk Part 2

The antecessor of M.D.K. story-wise, Ẁurdah Ītah was conceived as a Christian Vander solo album, the mastermind of Magma. Although compositionally you'll find this similar to M.D.K., Wurdah Itah unfortunately lacks the 'grandiose', the 'opera', the 'ecstatic', the 'amazing' (and so on) feel of Part 3 of Theusz Hamtaahk.

Why the hell did Christian sacrifice the brass instruments and the big choir? Those were the main components of M.D.K. and what made that album so amazing; you had the tension and the complexity done by those features. Wurdah Itah sounds like empty in that aspect, though it has grown on me, it's great to listen to Vander playing the piano all through this record.

Mind you, there still is Christian, Stella and Klaus Blasquiz singing operatically, but it's by no means as intense as the choral work featured in M.D.K., still there's lot of angelical moments, mainly when the vocals are alone with the piano.

Like I said, compositionally this is similar to M.D.K., Wurdah Itah is also one single piece of 38 minutes splitted in various tracks, in which each track progresses from calmer rhythms to more intense ones, so don't expect this album to be inferior in a compositional level, if not in a execution one, Ẁurdah Ītah doesn't reach such a climax as the sixth track, 'Mekanik Kommandoh', of the aforementioned album does.

To conclude I'll just restate that this album for me sounds rather empty compared to M.D.K. and that if it weren't for that emptiness Ẁurdah Ītah could have been another masterful Magma album.

3.5 stars: Of course still excellent in compositional quality and the unique feature of this album, which is Christian's extensive piano work, is a great thing to hear. This is undoubtedly a must for Magma fans, but for the rest of Prog fans this is not really essentially listening as M.D.K. is.

The Quiet One | 3/5 |

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