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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Who knows what Vander did ....
    Posted: June 13 2014 at 13:06

Before founding Magma, just after the death of Coltrane, Christian Vander went to Italy where he had, it seems, the idea of Magma. 
Does anybody know where he's gone and what he did in that period? When did he get the "illumination"?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 13 2014 at 13:11
Interesting subject Luca. As it happens I'm actually listening to the debut right now

I'll be following this thread that's for sure. Maybe Steveo has some insight into this?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 13 2014 at 13:48
Good question.  I did some searching but couldn't find much in the way of the pre-history of the band.  I have a vague recollection of hearing about a lucid dream Vander had about the future of humanity, and it frightened him and he began the concept from there.   I can't say for certain though.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 13 2014 at 13:58
This doesn't answer the question but in an interview from 2001 he says that the whole Zeuhl idea was given to him by a  revelation, and he believes that if he didn't do it then someone else would have because this music was going to come out through someone.  He also says the reason for a new language was simply because as he composed on the piano certain sounds would come out that fit the music. He says the first ever word that came out was Kobaia. Also from that interview he says looking back it's clear that planet Kobaia is planet Earth.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 13 2014 at 15:41
I'll try and find some liner notes from my Magma box set, but I recall that he reacted to Coltrane's death worse than most of us would react to the death of family members.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 13 2014 at 16:22
Hi,
 
Hmmmm ... having to know why, how and what, has never been a problem in my appreciation of Magma. And I do not believe that it is the most important value in all progressive and experimental works.
 
I have always had a good "psychic/inner" feel for their work, so I don't worry about all this senseless bruhaha.


Edited by moshkito - June 15 2014 at 15:04
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 14 2014 at 02:13
What's the latest?  Curiosity/interest in trivia is a problem that affects appreciation of music?Confused
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 14 2014 at 08:36
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Hi,
 
Hmmmm ... having to know why, how and what, has never been a problem in my appreciation of Magma.
 
I have always had a good "psychic/inner" feel for their work, so I don't worry about all this senseless bruhaha.


Mosh, it's a perfectly good premise for a thread i.e. what circumstances and events existed at around this time may have contributed to Vander starting Magma? The OP is not implying that gaining such information will make our appreciation of Magma any better, it is you that is inferring such. What might perhaps closer resemble senseless brouhaha would be someone responding to a request for information with:
I don't have that information but you don't need it as long as you completely disregard and misinterpret the OP.

Why did you bother to reply at all?Disapprove

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 14 2014 at 09:05
I've never had a good "psychic / inner" feel for Pedro's posts but in the interests of "art" I suggest we all work on developing an eidetic quotidian understanding of his stream of unconsciousness by simply looking at the psychotropic patterns formed by the space between the letters in each word rather than fixating upon the words themselves. While I have no idea what Vander was experiencing before creating Magnum, I suspect it was something only he could explain. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 14 2014 at 09:08
You can appreciate Dante's comedy without knowing anything of the Italian history of the 13th Century, but if you know it, you can "understand" it, too. 

EDIT: Note: Dean's post arrived while I was writing this one


Edited by octopus-4 - June 14 2014 at 09:10
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 14 2014 at 09:40
^ agreed, and it's often fascinating to explore and discover the context in which certain works are created. (Although I'm not sure if sufficient research would ever make something I currently don't enjoy any more palatable, but it does reveal a hitherto unseen depth to art that I do already like)
Art is a product of history not vice versa and none of it is created in a vacuum etc.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 14 2014 at 11:31
Originally posted by HolyMoly HolyMoly wrote:

Good question.  I did some searching but couldn't find much in the way of the pre-history of the band.  I have a vague recollection of hearing about a lucid dream Vander had about the future of humanity, and it frightened him and he began the concept from there.   I can't say for certain though.


I believe this was detailed in the liner notes for the remastered debut, as I remember reading this, too.


Edited by progrockdeepcuts - June 14 2014 at 11:35




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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 14 2014 at 16:38
I'm not sure where I have it; I don't have the collection handy at this moment (out traveling) to pinpoint where I have it from, but he did indeed go to Italy where he was "doing lots of drugs", in his own words, and was on the verge of killing himself. Apparently he'd also had a girlfriend there, but then at some point came to the conclusion that he had to continue Coltrane's work, and left said girlfriend in Italy to go back to France.

I'm not sure where exactly along the way the idea of Magma and Kobaďa pops up. They were going to play in some spot but the band didn't have a name, so they were refused until they had a name. Vander had been juggling the word "nogma" around, but had the epiphany that it should be "magma", and they played said gig.

That's all I can recall off the top of my head. Once I'm back home I'm going to comb through everything for detail, unless someone is gracious enough to do it.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 15 2014 at 15:00
Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

 ...
Mosh, it's a perfectly good premise for a thread i.e. what circumstances and events existed at around this time may have contributed to Vander starting Magma? The OP is not implying that gaining such information will make our appreciation of Magma any better, it is you that is inferring such. What might perhaps closer resemble senseless brouhaha would be someone responding to a request for information with:
I don't have that information but you don't need it as long as you completely disregard and misinterpret the OP.
...
 
Lem ... you are basically stating that all music, art and literature has to have a "meaning" ... and a lot of the 20th century works and arts were about breaking that thought apart.
 
My thought was an honest view about a lot of music during the past 50 years. Sure a "song" has meaning because of its lyrics! All of them? But the worst part is you, making a suggestion that because my opinion is not the same as all the others here, including yours, that I am wrong!
 
You do not have the individuality that helped create progressive music! Because all you can do is concur with anyone except the one person you don't like?  So ... why do you bother commenting? Because you think your dick is bigger and you know better?Clap


Edited by moshkito - June 15 2014 at 15:03
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 15 2014 at 18:43
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

 ...
Mosh, it's a perfectly good premise for a thread i.e. what circumstances and events existed at around this time may have contributed to Vander starting Magma? The OP is not implying that gaining such information will make our appreciation of Magma any better, it is you that is inferring such. What might perhaps closer resemble senseless brouhaha would be someone responding to a request for information with:
I don't have that information but you don't need it as long as you completely disregard and misinterpret the OP.
...
 
Lem ... you are basically stating that all music, art and literature has to have a "meaning" ... and a lot of the 20th century works and arts were about breaking that thought apart.
 
My thought was an honest view about a lot of music during the past 50 years. Sure a "song" has meaning because of its lyrics! All of them? But the worst part is you, making a suggestion that because my opinion is not the same as all the others here, including yours, that I am wrong!
 
You do not have the individuality that helped create progressive music! Because all you can do is concur with anyone except the one person you don't like?  So ... why do you bother commenting? Because you think your dick is bigger and you know better?Clap

Download "Internal Images" (it's free) from www.senmuth.com. Google the track titles which are names of places in the world. Read the stories of these places and listen to that kind of ambient-metal while you look at their photos.
There are no lyrics, but you will see the meaning. This is just an example. You don't need to find a meaning for most of Jon Anderson's lyrics, but sometimes there's one, and if you miss it you will likely miss something more.

 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 02:12
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

 ...
Mosh, it's a perfectly good premise for a thread i.e. what circumstances and events existed at around this time may have contributed to Vander starting Magma? The OP is not implying that gaining such information will make our appreciation of Magma any better, it is you that is inferring such. What might perhaps closer resemble senseless brouhaha would be someone responding to a request for information with:
I don't have that information but you don't need it as long as you completely disregard and misinterpret the OP.
...
 
Lem ... you are basically stating that all music, art and literature has to have a "meaning" ... and a lot of the 20th century works and arts were about breaking that thought apart.
 
My thought was an honest view about a lot of music during the past 50 years. Sure a "song" has meaning because of its lyrics! All of them? But the worst part is you, making a suggestion that because my opinion is not the same as all the others here, including yours, that I am wrong!
 
You do not have the individuality that helped create progressive music! Because all you can do is concur with anyone except the one person you don't like?  So ... why do you bother commenting? Because you think your dick is bigger and you know better?Clap


I've no idea why my post would have prompted anyone to start making inappropriate remarks about male reproductive organs? Clearly a raw nerve was struck but it reveals considerably more about you than me. You flatter yourself that I would even squander time forming any opinion about someone I have never met. Why do you presume I don;t like you just because I disagree with one of your posts? (That's a self esteem issue surely?) However, I think you are worthy of our support and sympathy rather than our vitriol, as it should be self-evident that if you continue to respond to PA members with posts such as this one, there won't even be anyone here willing to squander their time responding to your self aggrandizing polemic. Think on Pedro, not everyone round these parts is gonna be this nice about it. Stern Smile
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 10:20

Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:


...
Download "Internal Images" (it's free) from www.senmuth.com. Google the track titles which are names of places in the world. Read the stories of these places and listen to that kind of ambient-metal while you look at their photos.

There are no lyrics, but you will see the meaning. This is just an example. You don't need to find a meaning for most of Jon Anderson's lyrics, but sometimes there's one, and if you miss it you will likely miss something more.
...

 

Of all folks, whose work has been vilified for his lyrics, having meaningful or not lyrics, I would imagine that Jon Anderson would be a preferred candidate for stoning and being burnt at the stake by many people.

All in all, and I am a writer, and tend to write from my own inner vision, it's like dreams in your head ... they seem totally nonsensical and have no order whatsoever, and trying to find a meaning in it is nearly impossible. I gave up. It's a losing battle.

I went on a "search for meaning" when I am writing, since I can NOT write from a college paper format, where you have a theme and then break it down. I'm a total "stream of consciousness" (for lack of a better term), and if there is any meaning, it is not for me to discover, but for others, because I gave up looking for stuff that is so obscure and minimal that it is a waste of time! I've read things to "find" this meaning, from Lilly, Monroe, Occult, Tibet, Egypt, Maya, Castaneda, Morgan and many others ... and in the end, all we can find is that we like to "think" that because we have "meaning", that it makes our lives more important. This is what "religions" do for you, so you can "follow", and it is not exactly a "spiritual" path, because someone is telling you ... here is the road called Yellow Brick Road, that you are supposed to be on, and you are an idiot if you don't. And don't have 2.1 children, of course.

I do AGREE with Dean, to a point, that there is a lot on the inside that comes from our experience, however, when does that experience start and end is the problem, as there are things in my vision that are definitly in another time and place, that has nothing to do with Portugal, Brazil or the US or ProgArchives tastes in music!

But, us, sitting here, and thinking that everything has to have a meaning, is like having a discussion about nothing, and everything ... no one can possibly agree on anything at all, and the discussion kinda fades into nothing. But there is no experience out there that is better than others, although I do not think that the majority of "lyrics" are worth their weight in gold, copper, silver or crap. But the 20th century arts have, almost exclusively been a total commitment to invalidating "meaning", and I like to start with the surrealists just using images back to back, dream like, and it is impossible to gather a meaning, though anyone, can invent a meaning to pursue their own God ideal, right? Just like a few books out there!

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 10:37
Or it's all pretentious drivel...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 10:46
Nobody has stated that "everything has to have meaning". Where do these ideas come from Pedro?
Also, I am finding it very difficult to follow your line of thinking. For as long as I've been a member of PA, you've been talking about the linkage between the arts - the history behind some of the more famous acts inside "Krautrock" and how important it is to know where all of it came from - ie the communities, the films, the painting, etc etc, and then when we're trying to figure out the history behind an enigmatic band such as Magma, you suddenly feel altogether differentlyConfused
How is history only important when it pertains to something you yourself feel is important? What if we somehow found out that Vander slept with Mussolini's right hand, and, strictly by coincidence, came across some rather weird chords scribbled down on a piece of paper - something that eventually was to become "insert Magma piece"? 

Nothing is created in a vacuum, but then again we can appreciate music without it needing to have "meaning". History though doesn't always convey meaning. Sometimes it does quite the opposite. Here we're simply trying to find out what spurred Vander on to start the journey of Magma, and what many now affectionately call Zeuhl.
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