Question about Magma's albums

Okay so we all know that Magma's not the easiest to get into, so I kinda would like to know a bit more about the actual music that comprises each album:

DJPuffyLemon wrote: Theusz Hamtaahk

Evil slow bass grinding dark vocal and keyboard led; scarce bright melodious bursts.

1001 Centigrates

Very jovial and jumpy jazzy zeuhl sound, lots of horns; scarce dark splashes, still somewhat proto-zeuhl

KA (2004 album)

large diversity: eargasmic climaxes à la Kohntarkosz, fast complex bits, minimalistic beating rhythms, but very very vocal led.

Is that what you mean?

Theusz Hamtaahk has hitherto never been recorded in studio.

DJPuffyLemon wrote: and Shakespeare, yeah exactly like that, only more detailed, much more detailed. i mean like a play by play almost, summarize the piece i guess. or just describe it, tell me what your impression is, what you think of it, why you think what you did, etc

Maybe this is a bit too obvious but... reviews...?  Depends on reviewing style, but some people must surely have written blow-by-blow running-commentary style reviews of some of this stuff?  (I haven't reviewed K.A., and for the other albums mentioned my attempts are probably not precise enough for what you want... unless you like heavy-handed soundbites... er...)

All I can add to Shakespeare's neat summaries would be...

Theusz Hamtaahk - all about the precision.  And is rhythmically much more complicated than it may seem.  On 'Retrospektiw' they make it seem utterly effortless.  One of the most manipulative (in the best way!) Magma pieces.  Nothing unnecessary in it.  Nonchalantly sinister.  (Yep, back on the soundbites again...)  I absolutely love this, it's 'Zeuhl personified' and all those conflicting rhythms can be quite hypnotic.

1001 - totally confident, committed feel to this.  'Riah Sahiltaahk' is great, it's got this really effective combination of the jazz sound and early-Magma 'narrative' feel with hints of later stuff.  The other two pieces are very good too, although slightly more 'straightforward sounding' (and I'm always nonplussed by the ending of 'Iss Lansei Doia'  No, duh, edit... that should be 'Ki Iahl O Liahk'...).  The arrangements on here are just right - the music is so exuberant, it would be easy to go over the top with the instrumentation, but it's just restrained enough...

(Not heard the whole of K.A., so no comment there...)

I realise that this isn't really 'play-by-play' but I hope it gives some kind of impression of the 'feel' of the music...


Edited by song_of_copper - June 16 2008 at 10:05

yeah this has helped a bit, i didn't really need a play by play, just an idea of what they wanted to accomplish.

Black Velvet wrote: I don't own Retrospektiw but I was listening - on repeat - to the BBC recording in Londres  last night which has a 30min version of Theusz Hamtaahk. With this piece what you said 'bout rhythm is so important. The recording is from '74 featuring the Vander - Top combination which is nigh perfection, 'tis such rare situation where two musician are so musical aligned.

James wrote: Adam, you need to get Retrospektiw I-II, it's my favourite Magma by far (it was my first Magma actually).  I've not heard Londres, so I cannot compare it to this version, unfortunately.

I think 'R I-II' might be my favourite Magma also...  Its 'TH' is very different from the Londres version, which feels more chaotic and ugly (the 'good ugly', of course!).  The Londres one is more threateningly-dark, I guess, with the Retrospektiw one being more 'neurosurgically celestial', to coin a phrase...

And Vander+Paganotti... almost telepathic.  Vander+Top = scarily good, but V+P = indescribable, on this.  On other versions of 'TH' you can hear the cues for the singers to come in etc., but on Retrospektiw there's no 'compass' in the music at all.  Pretty amazing!

Plus the ultimate 'singalonga MDK'... can't beat that.