INÉDITS

Released on the obscure Tapioca label with unrealesed outtakes from Magma.Spitefully the registration quality are poor,and the live tracks are less interesting than the usual Magma-music.However still a good album.

This has been one of my favourite Magma albums recently and here is why. I feel some trancsendental quality in it, the album actually "says something".I f the aim was to procure to us some meaningful discourse, or a story, this has been done succesfully. It has a true poetic halo around it, and the presence of an "alive language" is vivid. A case when the personality of the author ceased to matter - it is Being, what speaks

Perhaps, i am mistaken, but at the moment i give it the highest mark

Interesting for MAGMA fans, but of little interest for thise who do not really like digging into archives and poor quality recordings. Because that is exactly the definition of the record: inedit live recordings of the band between 1972 and 1975. Poor quality recordings in songs that never appeared before (except some tracks that would appear in the recent K.A.). Great musicianship and playing, and a great opportunity to listen in the same record to almost all the musicians in MAGMA´s first era. 3 stars, but 4 stars for Zeuhl lovers

This is an interesting cross section of Magma history, featuring most or all of the definitive zeuhl musicians, sadly slightly marred by murky live recording.

"Opus 3" sets the standard with its cosmic electric keys and jazzy zeuhl rock variations with Jannick Top doing an extended bass solo, so this is obviously a required recording for us maniacal born-again Kobaians. Although these songs were performed between '72 and '75, I have to say that they all remind me strongly of the main "Kohntarkosz" theme, what with steady yet subtle rhythm work holding around one chord and those unique funeral jazz moments. (Still, it's been said that Kohntarkosz Anteria was written in '72 - and indeed, memorable snatches of the epic do appear on Inedits - so perhaps a lot of what we have here was contemporary with it, possibly to be included in Ementhet-Re? If so, they'll have to cut back on all this relentless improvisation - seeing a musician's talent expand across the stage is wonderful in a live setting but I'd prefer my studio slices of zeuhl to be much more tightly regimented.)

I'll highlight my favourite moment - the third track, "Om Zanka" is flowing piece of 7/8 jazz mood management with Vander soloing against the amazing Benoit Widemann, and neither buries the other. Frustratingly, the quality of the production is most punishing here. Once the duel is over (assumedly called as a draw owing to exhaustion) the traditional Kobaian choirs enter to weave in and out of Lockwood's violin melodies. It's stunning and frankly over far too quickly, although I have a feeling that this piece reemerges on "K.A."

Don't pick this one up first, but if you come under Magma's spell, don't disregard Inedits merely because it's not studio work. Magma fanatics should head here because it'll help them to come to terms with bootleg quality, and to put names to the songs on the ones they've already heard!

Inédits is an anachronism. Released in 1977, well after the great shift of classical to jazz in '76, it is an awkward jut back into the past, to the avant-garde realm of Bartók, Orff, Stravinsky. This dive back to the anterior is in fact a live album, recorded earlier (therefore maybe not really an anachronism). The muddy sound quality really ruins the phenomenal compositions, who were luckily later lavished with the supreme recording power of the new millennium. The majority of the album's strong bits, motifs, jams, are all on the 2004 masterpiece Köhntarkösz Anteria (commonly known as K.A).

Musicians are in top shape, the compositions are strong, and the chart of dynamics, instruments, styles is very varied. These three things are some of the most important qualities of a masterpiece. This leaves one wondering why it isn't essential - why most people don't consider it essential.

With its laughably long line-up, in which only two members are present throughout the entirety of the album, and other inconsistencies of the performance: recording quality jumps around, messy editing: this doesn't appear too seemly an album. But for the Magma collector, expert, die-hard: it is an essential glance into this period of Magma's development, an early view of what would be K.A, and thus, when compared to its successor, an interesting look at the development underwent in thirty something years. For a casual Magma fan, and especially a Magma virgin, this record is most definitely not a necessity. Hark: start elsewhere.

I had no idea what to really expect from this, but already being a fan of two Magma efforts, this thing absolutely subceded (as opposed to superceded or exceded) my expectations.

I had no idea why I didn't go into INEDITS knowing it was a live recording; I think I realized it when I first heard the album. I'm not even ten seconds into the first track and the sound quality is already pretty bad. Weak would be a perfect characterisation of the sound.

Even then, I can't get into any of the music. Most of this sounds like bland, generic fusion. Granted Magma had jazz fusion elements on earlier albums, say 1001 DEGREES CENTIGRADE, here, the fusion is just so boring that it's really hard for me to listen to this in one go. Sometimes, the blandness gets in the way of what goes on instrumentally. Like when a bass solo occurs, I don't go ''WOW, that's an AWESOME bass thing!!'' because my mind isn't there at the time. Instead, the solo will have gone on for a minute already, then I exclaim, ''Wait, there a bass solo? When did this happen?!?'' This feeling happens throughout much of the album.

I can only recall the first vocal bits of ''Opus 3'' and the opening of ''Gamma''. Nothing else sticks out musically. I'm still trying to get the bitter taste out of my mouth as every other Magma album I've heard thus far is insanely good.