LIVE/HHAÏ (KÖHNTARK)

An unbelievable live document. If you're not sure of where to start with Magma, plunge in right here! You'll experience everything from rapturous joy ("Kobah") to mystery ("Lihns") to breathtaking thrill rides ("Khontark"). Didier Lockwood's violin work on here is a real treat, and I LOVE that heavy, angry throbbing fuzz-bass of Bernard's!

After 1001 , Mekanik, and Kohntarkosz , all three superb and definitive albums , they just had to do a live album and what a gem this one is . They will release many live albums from those years later on , but none as fabulous as this one. I was in Canada in the 70's and Magma albums were available only by import and chances to see that fabulous music live was unthinkable so I was so eager to see if they managed to pull this off in concert and finally this one came out. I had pestered my fave record shop almost everyday when I heard this was released in Europe . What a Blast from the first second the needle hit the wax and thirty years later what a blast when the lazer hits the silice slice.

I'm not a big fan of zheul, see my zao review, seems like there is just far TO MUCH going on. But this is a pretty good album. I wish it was instrumental as the vocals are very weird to me. I must seem to hate vocals as of late, but really I don't, I am just giving a lot of albums I dis-regarded a second chance the past few days. Prog almost never sounds bad musically I have found out, at least the bands I found on this site. If there is ever a downfall its usually the vocals or noodling.

But some of the music sounds like some of the more complex fusion..only even more complex...I can def. see this as an aquired taste and something that takes a long time to get into, not for the faint of heart/average prog fan.

Double live album dated 1975, recorded in Paris, a kind of resumed tunes from their early period,which is also the ideal music background for Vander & C., especially in their representation of the scenic effects on stage: two sides spent in the execution of the suite "Kònhtarck" , the other one for "Mekanik Zain", even by means of the virtuosic manner of playing regarding the style of Didier Lockwood, with his powerful violin...as usual you like or hate them, without compromises!!

One of the best live albums of all time, and this especially because of a young violinist named Didier Lockwood, who was only 17 or 18 when this album was recorded, but who would become a major figure in jazz and fusion later. (Jean-Luc Ponty gave him the violin he himself had received from Stephane Grapelli, as a token of appreciation for his playing; this truly says something about Didier Lockwood). Magma are absolutely dark and terrifying on this album, with superior vocals by Klaus Blasquiz and Stella Vander. Christian Vander proves he is one of the best drummers in prog (too often forgotten in drum polls), and the bass is a real monster (only the bass of Nic Potter on VdGG's live album "Vital" is a competition for it). Definitely not easy listening, but Magma never were. An album that often finds its way into our CD-player.

This was my introduction to Magma. unusually for me I have the CD rather than Vinyl.

It's hard to describe this music. A bit jazzy, rhythmical, ambient, intense all at once. You must listen to this album. When you do persevere through the opening of Kohntark. i found it a bit hard to take at times.

Kobah and Lihns take you to a whole new workd of music at which the progger will fell at home, recognise parts but not the whoel, and yet be surrounded and immersed in sheer prog heaven. Hhai continues the theme: jazzy, rocky, folky with a hippy trip thrown in: I almost expected Joni Mitchell to join in.

Mekanik Zain has a interesting repeating riff played very quickly on the bass. the drums are superb but the absolute master here is Didier Lockwood. Indescribable.

An absolute must have album. esential to any prog collection. but while this floats my boat it wil not be to everyone's taste.

4.5 stars. I agree that this is their most Fusion sounding release. I have never heard so much violin either on a MAGMA record. There are times when Didier Lockwood makes his violin sound like a guitar, no i'm not kidding. He's all over this album though, while Vander and Pagnotti supply the ingredients for a formidable rhythm section. Widemann on keys, and Blasquiz and Stella on vocals are the main players on this live document. They introduce three new songs on this double live record, while they play one from their debut, and two each from their "MDK" & "Kohntarkosz" albums.

It's cool to hear "Kohntark" parts one and two played right after one another to open the proceedings. I'm not sure why there is a gap of silence between the two though. That is disappointing. Anyway, after a dramatic intro to part one the song settles down 1 1/2 minutes in. The main melody arrives 3 minutes in and I like it a lot. Vocals, drums and violin lead the way.The tension builds up to the 6 minute mark when the song changes. Check out the drumming after 8 minutes. Screaming violin after 13 minutes,but the main melody of female vocal melodies and drums is fairly mellow. It ends before 15 minutes as a pastoral climate arrives that continues into part two of this "Kohntark" track. Yes it is interupted first by a gap of silence. Violin comes in early and later after 4 minutes as the instrumental work and vocals build to a frenzy. We're are cooking 7 minutes in with a good rhythm that includes relentless bass and drums while the violin is shredding. 9 1/2 minutes in the crowd bursts into applause I believe for Lockwood's amazing violin work. What a frantic conclusion to this 32 minutes of "Kohntark". The first disc ends with "Emehnteht-Re (Announcement)" a new song. It opens with solemn sounding vocal melodies which aren't a highlight. Violin joins in 2 minutes in. It all stops as spoken words follow. We then get a long instrumental section to the end of the song that is reserved.

Disc two opens with a new song called "Hhai". It begins with reserved vocal melodies that become quite powerful. They stop 3 minutes in as instrumental work gets louder. Some great bass, violin and drums follow before vocals return 6 1/2 minutes in. Paganotti just kills on this one. A very powerful sound to end the song. "Kobah" apparently was spelled wrong as it's the title track from their first album called "Kobaia". This one is jazzy sounding with vocals. A very catchy tune with organ and guitar making rare appearances. It's hard not to move to this song. "Lihns" is another new track. This has a tranquil, laid back soundscape with vocals including Stella later on. Electric piano and drums stand out instrumentally. The last two songs are from "MDK". "Da Zeuhl Wortz Mekanik" opens with prominant male vocals before being joined by other vocals. Drums pound away as violin plays over top. Tempo changes early before the song settles into a groove. Guitar melodies are competing not only with the violin, but the relentless rhythm with vocals. This is great ! Some fat bass before 4 minutes. Screaming violin before the song ends with some strong vocals from Blasquiz. "Mekanik Zain" is the 18 minute finale. Check out Pagnotti making his bass make unheard of sounds. The beginning is quite experimental with lots of atmosphere to follow. A melody arrives after 3 minutes. And it sounds fantastic ! The violin starts to grind it out as bass, drums and keys provide the rhythm. The violin is amazing in this frenzied soundscape. A change comes in before 12 minutes as an uptempo melody with vocals arrives. Violin is back after 16 minutes. Lockwood gets another loud applause from the crowd during this track.

I don't think I have ever given 5 stars to a double album before. It's too difficult to have that much material that is worthy of a five star rating. Highly recommended anyway as MAGMA brings down the house on this one.

Jazz Fusion, Zeuhl, Psych Prog and ambient darkness - how else do you describe this?

I was stunned at how chilling this music is - a cross between celtic chanting druids and gregorian monks in a dark cathedral mixed with jazz rhythms. Actually that does not describe it at all. It is simply indescribable music and definitely not for all tastes, including mine. I found it hard to grasp and a little disturbing on first listen. Then it kind of grows on you like fungus. You tend to blend in with the music and surrealistic approach like osmosis but is never pleasant as far as I am concerned. It is just too bizarre to comprehend

Each track is unique and impossible to remember. None of the tracks are designed as real songs. Kohntark is the magnum opus like epic, so large it is in two parts. The ominous menace of the music is immediately apparent and ferociously original. The unfriendly atmosphere is captured in this live document, not unlike attending a funeral at times. It lurches forward and an unsettleing cadence sets in with repetitive chanting and off kilter, out of sync guitar. At times the music is really like having your head drilled with nails and it goes on and on relentlessly.

The drums lock in after about 8 minutes and it breaks in to a kind of African metrical pattern. The female choral vocals are loud and dominant by Stella Vander, as nutty as anything from Gong. There is a violin by Lockwood that is unbearable at times as it screams across the soundscape Magma create, especially 13 minutes in. It has the capacity to chill the marrow of your bones. The vocalisation is entirely fictionalised garb from an alien world, comparable to albums with the same trademark vocal style such as 'MDK'. The minor chords are heavily utilised in order to disturb the ear with admirable effect.

Hhai is another highlight that has an excellent hypnotic effect, almost mesmirising and you hardly notice the 9 minutes have passed before the next track begins.

Kobah is definitely my favourite track on the album as it features beautiful psychedelic chanting and is a reasonable length that does not meander for decades but tells its ambiguous story and gets out.

Lihns is very strange again with a heavy melody but not a highlight by any means.

Mekanik Zain features a rather quirky 7/8 rhythm. The ethereal bass and violin are masterfully executed. In fact the entire album is bass heavy.

In conclusion, my first taste of Magma has been rather an intriguing, if difficult to digest journey, albeit a darker journey than I expected. I feel that the overall approach to the music is akin to listening to bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sunn O))) or Sigur Ros, in the sense that it takes a few listens to really appreciate the music, and even after many listens you are still unsure of how much you like the band or if indeed you like them at all. I feel that Magma are great in small doses but can be rather draining in large doses. I understand the cult following for such a band, but they are certainly not my taste, though I admittedly appreciate the originality and influence and importance of Magma.

EDIT: In conclusion, this live album deserves its cult following, and at first Magma were not my taste but then I began to acquire the taste and could not get enough of them!

Describing the music of Magma will always be a challenge. In his colorful 1999 autobiography 'Repossessed', Julian Cope called the band "a Utopian Indo-European head trip who sang in their own language and wrote epic percussion and vocal-based mantras about a huge personal mythology". And here's Bill Bruford, one of the more firmly grounded personalities in Prog Rock at the time, interviewed by author Paul Stump for his 1997 book 'The Music's All That Matters': "They appeared to be an elemental force that was completely unlike anything else".

Yes, but what exactly does their music sound like? After first hearing the band on their 1975 'Live / Hhaï' double disc (twenty years late, but better than never), my own gut reaction won't be any more illuminating: imagine a division of bloodthirsty Munchkin panzers laying waste to the Land of Oz.

In more conventional terms, the music of Magma is intense, complex, operatic, obscure and hypnotic: the classic '70s Prog equivalent of what would later be called Math Rock, practiced long before the term was ever coined. References are made in their albums to John Coltrane, Carl Orff, the sacred liturgical chants of Dark Age monasteries...and if by now you're thoroughly confused, join the club. The only way to fully understand the music of Magma is to hear it, and this concert recording has long been acknowledged as the ideal introduction.

Prog fans of a certain age may experience, at first exposure to the band, a thrilling sense of déjà vu. This is music that clearly belongs on the same shelf as the early MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA, or classic KING CRIMSON circa 'Starless and Bible Black', sharing the same passionate commitment to an uncompromising musical vision, and likewise featuring a mix of energetic Jazz-Rock drumming, distorted electric violin, and window- rattling bass guitar lines. Simply trade the spiky lead guitar accents of FRIPP or MCLAUGHLIN for the uncanny virtuosity of vocalists Klaus Blasquiz and Stella Vander, and the result is a not unfair comparison, here beamed down from a distant galaxy. No wonder Bill Bruford was impressed.

Sides One and Two of the first LP (yes, I opted for vinyl over the available CD: the eerie gatefold cover art was too attractive to pass up) is devoted to the epic 31- minute 'Köhntarkösz', played in its entirety. The escalating jam in Part Two is what initially converted me to a diehard fan, beginning with a beautifully understated melody on electric piano and gradually rising to a climactic frenzy, sparked by a particular drum fill by Magma honcho Christian Vander that never fails to send a shiver up my spine.

A trio of shorter sings can be found on Side Three. And the final side of vinyl is reserved for the last nineteen minutes of the fan-favorite 'Mëkanik Destruktïw Kommandöh', featuring an increasingly uncontrolled Didier Lockwood violin solo over a hyperactive, serpentine bass guitar figure, leading eventually to a typically gymnastic vocal finale that may well leave you slack-jawed and drooling.

Even better, at least one version of the compact disc apparently adds a further fifteen minutes of music not on the original vinyl (had I but known...), so it's past time to upgrade, fellow Kobaïans. Pardon the lengthy rave, but an indispensible five-star classic that opens up new musical vistas to the uninitiated deserves no less.

France sure sprouted its share of weird bands in the seventies. Magma is the most widely recognized of those. Their music started from a willful form of jazz rock that gradually mutated into a dense sound, heavy on jazz signature drums, entrancing distorted bass, and intense vocal performances in a self-invented language.

Well, the sound - or should I say the universe - that was evoked by it was so unique and out-worldly that this kind of music became known as a genre of its own, with Magma (and a few followers) as its sole representative. Zeuhl was born.

This Magma Live/Hhaï from 1975 was the first album I heard from them and I was sold on the spot. I was already receptive towards 70's jazz-rock but this pretty much blew me away. The album contains a solid performance of Köhntarkösz (a 30 minute piece from the preceding studio album). The set list is completed by a number of very attractive shorter tracks from earlier albums and the 20 minute monolith called Mëkanïk Zaïn, which only appears on this album (as far as I know). With its heavy distorted bass guitar it kind of foreshadows Da Futura from the ensuing Üdü Wüdü. My issue doesn't contain the track from their defining album MDK nor the E-Re track, which is fine, the way to enjoy that piece is in one sitting, not by a 7 minute excerpt from it.

If you like this type of music you sure own this album already. If you don't but are curious about this magnificent band, Live/Hhaï might be your place to start. 4.5 stars

Magma's 'Live 1975' is an highlight of the group's career. Christian Vander, the drummer, is of course the founder of the 'Zeuhl' genre; which represents and avant-prog mix of heavy classical music (Carl Orff), early fusion (for instance Miles Davis' 'In A Silent Way') and modal jazz (John Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things'). The highly conceptual style of composing long pieces and saga's is another trait of the band. Whereas Magma had performed these pieces mostly with just Vander and Blasquiz on operatic vocal duties, the band would expand on its vocal arrangements for the re-recorded 'MDK', adding vocalist Stella Vander as a member of the group. On 'Live 75' the band offers a great introduction for newcomers. The two LP sides filled with Kohntark are a beautiful re-arranged version of the album the year before. The added violin and female vocals really enhance the piece and I much prefer the ending section this way. This is one of Magma's most brooding pieces, offering a contant doom in a slow paced intricate drum rhythm. The piercing violin near the end of the first part surely is among the most exciting moments of music history. The third side is filled with rather pleasant Magma pieces, the beautiful 'Hhai' being my favorite. The melodic and gentle version of 'Kobaiah' is also a treat. The fourth side is a largely instrumental and fast-paced Zeuhl piece based on themes of their 'MDK' album. The recording quality is quite good and this version of Magma is my favorite of the seventies. For new listeners this band can be quite a lot to take in, but I can recommend this live record as a starting point .

First and possibly the best Magma live album. Recorded in Paris and released in 1975, after the band released their absolutely essential three first albums, this recordings are "the best" collection and documentary of their golden period.

Magma's music is world for its own. Avant-garde mix of Vagner,Orff, neo classicism, fusion and dark experimentalism, this music is far from easy accessible. Unprepared listener needs many spins just to catch it. But if (and when) you will dig as deep as possible and just get this strange idea, mounted somewhere between master strokes and dark classic strings sound, you will find plenty of interesting things there.

I am quite a stranger in Magma's world, but living in parallel universe with them, I can really enjoy some of their moments. Possibly, I need more years (!) to be more familiar with Kobaian way of thinking.

But even stranger ( ok, let say - stranger with some background) could find this work interesting and even enjoyable. Because of excellent combination of extra-professional drumming, dark strings and bass-line. All them build a bit nervous, uncomfortable, but magnetic space, especially played live.

One of the most attractive Magma album for me ( yes, I am stranger in their world).

Issued in various forms - make sure you don't get the edition with the truncated track list - Magma's Live/Hhai shows the full group on top form, right at the peak of their most fertile progressive phase. With long extracts from Kohntarkosz and Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh, hints of what would become Emehnteht-Re, a funky fusion throwback to their debut and a single original composition (Lihns), the album offers a compelling and intense tour through Magma's sonic universe. Others have already extensively sung its praises, but I want to go out of my way to praise the violin playing of Didier Lockwood, which stands out amongst the many fine instrumental performances here as being particularly noteworthy. Simply put, Live/Hhai is the first stop on any exploration of Magma's live side, and should be at the top of any Zeuhl shopping list.

If there's one type of album I've had a bad history with, it's the live album. I'm from the generation that gets spoiled with VHS tapes, DVD concerts, internet streams, etc. I have no understanding of the importance of a live record and have very little urge to investigate live albums. Usually, the studio version of a song is the first I hear, and it's hard to top the first time I hear something. Every live album that has ''new'' tracks has been a dud to me, including my first try with Magma on a live album. INEDITS is not a good Magma album to get, period. So, why did I get HHAI after all I've said before?

Something told me it was time to give HHAI a listen. To be fairly honest, with the resources they have, HHAI actually works to an extent. Without a brass section to accentuate the MDK pieces colourfully, Didier Lockwood's violin adds more of a fusion-y texture to the sound. The vocals are also limited to usually Klaus and Stella (not all the time though), which sucks as the core of Magma is the operatic choirs and that's what really gave KOHNTARKOSZ and MDK their power.

''Kohntark'' is really ''Kohntarkosz'', but without as much power with much of the choir and the guitars missing (Lockwood can only compensate for so much, as good as he is). ''Da Zeuhl Wortz Mekanik'' is exactly the same as on MDK only sped up while its continuation in ''Mekanik Zain'' is a hyperactive jamming around the main theme of MDK before going into ''Mekanik Kommandoh'' at the end. Neither is too bad, but the studio tracks offer so much more. In contrast, the reworking of ''Kobaia'' in ''Kobah'' is done rather well as the bouncy fusion fits the track as well as that thumping proto-Zeuhl did back on the debut.

Magma really does deliver very well not only on ''Kobah'', but on the other three tracks. In particular, that title track climaxes only like Magma could do it, and it's absolutely spellbinding to hear the climb. Basically, HHAI is probably the best live album I've heard, which is good credit even if I feel passive on it.