Magma (band)
French progressive rock band From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
French progressive rock band From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Magma is a French progressive rock band founded in Paris in 1969 by self-taught drummer Christian Vander, who claimed as his inspiration a "vision of humanity's spiritual and ecological future" that profoundly disturbed him. The style of progressive rock that Vander developed with Magma is termed "Zeuhl", and has been applied to other bands in France operating in the same period, and to some recent Japanese bands.[2]
 | This article needs to be updated. (March 2021) |
Magma | |
|---|---|
 Magma performing live at Roadburn Festival, 2017 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Paris, France |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1969–1984, 1996–present |
| Labels | |
| Members | Christian Vander Stella Vander Isabelle Feuillebois Rudy Blas Hervé Aknin Francis Linon[1] Simon Goubert Thierry Eliez Jimmy Top Caroline Indjein Sylvie Fisichella Laura Guarrato |
| Past members | Francis Moze Jannick "Janik" Top Klaus Blasquiz Didier Lockwood Bernard Paganotti Benoît Widemann Teddy Lasry Himiko Paganotti Antoine Paganotti Emmanuel Borghi Bruno Ruder Laurent Thibault Jérémie Ternoy Jim Grandcamp James MacGaw Jérome Martineau-Ricotti Philippe Bussonnet Benoît Alziary Claud Angel Jean-Pierre Lambelt Patrick Gauthier Yochiko Seffer Brian Godding |
| Website | magmamusic |
Vander created a fictional language, Kobaïan, in which most lyrics are sung.[3] In a 1977 interview with Vander and long-time Magma vocalist Klaus Blasquiz, Blasquiz said that Kobaïan is a "phonetic language made by elements of the Slavonic and Germanic languages to be able to express some things musically. The language has of course a content, but not word by word."[4] Vander himself has said, "When I wrote, the sounds [of Kobaïan] came naturally with it—I didn't intellectualise the process by saying 'Ok, now I'm going to write some words in a particular language', it was really sounds that were coming at the same time as the music."[5] In the course of their first album, the band tells the story of a group of people fleeing a doomed Earth to settle on the planet Kobaïa. Subsequently, conflict arises when the Kobaïans - descendants of the original colonists - encounter other Earth refugees. Later albums tell different stories set in more ancient times; however, the Kobaïan language remains an integral part of the music.
In 1986, the French label Seventh Records was founded to (re-)publish Magma's and Vander's work. Over the years, Seventh has also released albums by related artists such as Stella Vander, Patrick Gauthier, and Collectif Mu.[6]
In early 1967, drummer Christian Vander played in the Wurdalaks and Cruciferius Lobonz, two rhythm and blues bands. With these groups, he wrote his first compositions, "Nogma" and "Atumba". The death of John Coltrane saddened Vander, who left the groups and traveled to Italy. He returned to France in 1969 and met saxophonist René Garber and bassist and conductor Laurent Thibault. Together with singer Lucien Zabuski and organist Francis Moze, they created the group Uniweria Zekt Magma Composedra Arguezdra, shortened to Magma.[7]
After their first tour, Magma experienced significant lineup turnover. Vocalist Lucien Zabuski was replaced with Klaus Blasquiz, and pianist Eddie Rabin, double bassist Jacky Vidal, and guitarist Claude Engel also joined the group. The group worked on material for three months in a house in the Chevreuse Valley. Eddie Rabin was replaced by François Cahen on keyboards, and Laurent Thibault abandoned bass to devote himself to production. Francis Moze became the new bassist. The band also expanded with a brass section, consisting of Teddy Lasry on saxophone and clarinet, Richard Raux on saxophone and flute, and Paco Charlery on trumpet. The group's first album, Magma, was released in the spring of 1970 by Philips Records. The group caused a sensation but audience reactions were mixed.[7]
After the album was released, Claude Engel, Richard Raux, and Paco Charlery left the group. Jeff Seffer replaced Raux on saxophone, and Louis Toesca replaced Charlery on trumpet. Their second album, 1001° Centigrades, was released in April 1971. The album won the band more exposure, including a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival.[7]
In August 1972, Magma released the album The Unnamables, under the alias Univeria Zekt. However, the album sold only 1,500 copies. Many musicians left the band that year, including François Cahen, Louis Toesca, Jeff Seffer, Francis Moze, and Teddy Lasry.[7] That same year, Christian Vander recorded the soundtrack for Yvan Lagrange's film Tristan et Iseult.[7]
In 1973, Vander formed a new lineup of the band, adding Stella Vander as a second vocalist, Claude Olmos on guitar, Jannick Top replacing Francis Moze on bass, René Garber on saxophone and clarinet, and Jean-Luc Manderlier on keyboards, among others. This new version of the band would release their most famous work Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh, which would later become their most acclaimed album, and gave them international fame,[7] including a spot at the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival, their first American performance. In 1974, under Vander's name, the band released a soundtrack album accompanying Yvan Lagrange's 1972 film Tristan et Iseult, also known as Ẁurdah Ïtah; under Magma's name, they followed up with Köhntarkösz, which was successful among fans, but not received as well among the public as Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh.[7] The band would then go on a long, year-and-a-half long tour of France, and after another member shakeup (Bernard Paganotti replacing Jannick Top on bass, Didier Lockwood added as a violinist, Jean-Pol Asseline and Benot Widemann replacing Gerard Bikialo on keyboards, and Gabriel Federow replacing Claude Olmos on guitar), released their first live album, Live / Hhaï, in December 1975, recorded at the Taverne de l'Olympia in Paris.[8]
In 1976, Top briefly rejoined the band for the recording of the album Üdü Ẁüdü, but left soon after due to strained relations with frontman Christian Vander. More lineup turnover followed in 1977, with Jean DeAntoni replacing Gabriel Federow on guitar, Guy Delacroix replacing Bernard Paganotti on bass, and Clement Bailly hired as a second drummer.
In 1978, Magma released the album Attahk. Vying for more commercial success,[9] the album included elements of soul, rhythm & blues, and funk music.
Celebrating 10 years as a band, in 1980, Magma performed three nights at L'Olympia in Paris, with guest appearances from many of the group's past musicians. These were recorded and released as Retrospektïẁ (Parts I+II) and Retrospektïẁ (Part III). The concerts were successful, and allowed Magma to play a number of shows around France, including a three-week residency at Paris's Bobino in 1981, which was recorded and filmed, and later released as Concert Bobino 1981.
In 1984, the band recorded the album Merci, and disbanded shortly afterwards. Christian Vander formed other projects such as Offering, and various jazz projects including the Christian Vander Trio.
While performing as Offering, Vander would occasionally perform Magma songs. In 1989, professional snooker champion Steve Davis convinced Vander to perform a reunion tour (at least six shows[10][11]) which led Vander to consider reuniting Magma.[12][13]
After the dissolution of Offering, this was fully realised in 1996 after friend Bernard Ivan asked Vander if he was considering reviving Magma, as he was confident he could get Vander concert dates. Vander agreed, but confessed that he didn't think there would be any remaining interest in the band. Ivan came back to Vander to tell him he fully booked a number of gigs for Magma and Vander, surprised, quickly cobbled a lineup from Offering and friends in the music scene to create a new 14-piece Magma.[14]
Vander decided to revive some sections of tracks he had written back in 1972-1973 while working on Köhntarkösz on this new tour. Eventually, these merged into one big composition K.A (Köhntarkösz Anteria), which released in 2004 to acclaim and surprise at their comeback. K.A is conceptually the prequel to Köhntarkösz, which was then followed up by a sequel Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré in 2009, ending a narrative trilogy between the three albums.
On 30 September 2022 Magma released their fifteenth album Kartëhl.[15] The album is a collective work of the band members. The copyright proceeds of the track Dëhndë will be donated to a charity for people with autism.[16]
Magma still tour today.
| Kobaïan | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Christian Vander |
| Date | 1969 |
| Setting and usage | Lyrics for a musical group |
| Purpose | |
| Sources | Based on elements of Slavic and Germanic languages and the scat-yodeling vocal style of Leon Thomas[3] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
| IETF | art-x-kobaian |
Kobaïan is a lyrical language created by Christian Vander for Magma.[17][18][19] It is the language of Kobaïa, a fictional planet invented by Vander and the setting for a musical "space opera" sung in Kobaïan by Magma on fifteen concept albums.[3][20][21]
French drummer and composer Christian Vander formed Magma in late 1969 in an attempt to fill the void left by the death of American jazz musician and composer John Coltrane.[3] Magma's first album, Magma (later reissued as Kobaïa), told a story of refugees fleeing a future Earth and settling on a fictional planet called Kobaïa.[22] The lyrics were all in Kobaïan (except the title track, sung mostly in English), a language Vander constructed for the album, some sung by soloists and others by "massive quasi-operatic choruses".[3] Over the next three decades, Magma have made fifteen albums that continues the mythology of Kobaïa, all sung in Kobaïan.[20]
Vander (his Kobaïan name is Zëbëhn Straïn dë Ğeuštaah) said in an interview that he invented Kobaïan for Magma because "French just wasn't expressive enough. Either for the story or for the sound of the music".[19][23] He said that the language developed in parallel with the music, that sounds appeared as he was composing on a piano.[24] Vander based Kobaïan in part on elements of Slavic and Germanic languages and in part on the scat-yodeling vocal style of American avant-garde jazz singer Leon Thomas.[3] The subsequent expansion of the language became a group effort, and as Magma's personnel changed, so new ideas were incorporated into the language (and the music).[22]
British music critic Ian MacDonald said that Kobaïan is "phonetic, not semantic", and that it is based on "sonorities, not on applied meanings".[25] One of Magma's singers, Klaus Blasquiz, described Kobaïan as "a language of the heart" whose words are "inseparable from the music".[25] Magma expert Michael Draine said "the abstraction provided by the Kobaïan verse seems to inspire Magma's singers to heights of emotional abandon rarely permitted by conventional lyrics".[3]
The Kobaïan lyrics on Magma's albums were generally not translated (though both Kobaïan lyrics and an English translation were provided for the first UK release on A&M of Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh), but clues to the unfolding story of Kobaïa were given in French in the albums' liner notes. While the original intent of the language was to avoid over-scrutiny, unofficial Kobaïan online lexicons were created by Magma fans, and Vander himself has since translated many of the words.[20]
Christian Vander called Magma's music "Zeuhl" (Kobaïan for "celestial"),[26] and it influenced a number of other (mostly French) bands, including Zao (France), Art Zoyd (France) and Univers Zero (Belgium).[27] Zeuhl later became a music genre which was used to describe music similar to that of Magma.[28][29] Several Japanese Zeuhl bands also sprang up, including Ruins and Kōenji Hyakkei, whose lyrics are also sung in a constructed language similar to Kobaïan.[20]
Christian Vander has described the style of progressive rock that he developed with Magma in France from 1969 onwards as "zeuhl".[30] Dominique Leone, writing for Pitchfork, says the style is "about what you'd expect an alien rock opera to sound like: massed, chanted choral motifs, martial, repetitive percussion, sudden bursts of explosive improv and just as unexpected lapses into eerie, minimalist trance-rock."[31] The term comes from Kobaïan,[26] the fictional language created by Vander for Magma.[19] He has said that it means celestial;[26] that "Zeuhl music means 'vibratory music'"[32] and that zeuhl is "L'esprit au travers de la matière. That is Zeuhl. Zeuhl is also the sound which you can feel vibrating in your belly. Pronounce the word Zeuhl very slowly, and stress the letter 'z' at the beginning, and you will feel your body vibrating."[33]
Originally applied solely to the music of Magma, the term "zeuhl" was eventually used to describe the similar music produced by French bands beginning in the 1970s.[34] In addition to Magma, bands who are associated with the term include: Happy Family,[35] Kōenji Hyakkei,[36] and Ruins[37] from Japan, and French band Zao.[38]
The Chicago Reader wrote that Magma's music "could arguably be labeled modern classical, progressive rock, free jazz, or even psychedelia, but it’s too big for any of those boxes".[39]
Vander was musically influenced by John Coltrane and Carl Orff.[40]
The mythology of Kobaïa seems to be strongly influenced by the esoteric The Urantia Book, a kind of pseudo-bible that combines religious elements of various origins with scientific findings and science fiction. Furthermore, the motifs surrounding the myth of Kobaïa, particularly in the first three albums, have similarities with Johannes Kepler's novel Somnium from 1634, Francis Godwin's novel The Man in the Moone from 1638 and Cyrano de Bergerac's The Other World (Orig. L'autre monde), whose works gained new popularity in France in the 1970s. With the album Theusz Hamthaak, the motifs increasingly approach modern science fiction literature of the 20th century such as H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, Olaf Stapledon's The Last and the First Men and The Star Maker of 1930 or Arthur C. Clark's The Last Generation from 1953. However, Vander has not yet commented directly on the sources of his inspirations.[41]
The band is widely considered to be musically adventurous and imaginative[42][43][44] among music critics. Magma uses choirs extensively in a way reminiscent of the composer Carl Orff.[45] Magma's music is also highly influenced by jazz saxophone player John Coltrane, and Vander has said that "it is still Coltrane who actually gives me the real material to work on, to be able to move on".[46]
Many of the musicians who have played with Magma have also formed solo projects or spinoff acts. The Kobaïan term Zeuhl has come to refer to the musical style of these bands and the French jazz fusion/symphonic rock scene that grew around them.[2] Besides Christian Vander, other well-known Magma alumni include the violinist Didier Lockwood, bassist-composer Jannick "Janik" Top,[47] and spinoff act Weidorje.[48]
The band has a number of high-profile fans. Punk rock singer Johnny Rotten,[49] metal musician Kristoffer Rygg,[50] Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree,[51] Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth,[52] Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden,[53] Cattle Decapitation vocalist Travis Ryan,[54] magician Penn Jillette, and Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky have all stated their admiration of the band.
In the 1980s, British World champion snooker player Steve Davis declared himself a passionate follower of the band since his youth and used some of his winnings to promote a series of concerts by Magma in London.[55]
Television journalist Antoine de Caunes wrote a biography of the band entitled Magma.[56][57]
In 2017, documentary filmmaker Laurent Goldstein directed To Life, Death and Beyond – The Music of Magma. Interviewees include Christian Vander, Stella Vander, James MacGaw, Trey Gunn, Robert Trujillo, and Jello Biafra.[58]
| Period | Formation | Recording |
|---|---|---|
| Early 1969 |
|
|
| April 1969 – August 1969 |
|
|
| August 1969 – October 1969 |
|
|
| October 1969 – January 1970 |
|
|
| January 1970 – August 1970 |
|
Magma (1970) |
| October 1970 – December 1970 |
|
|
| mid January 1971 – end December 1971 |
|
1001° Centigrades (1971) Univeria Zekt - The Unnamables (1972) |
| end December 1971 – beginning January 1972 |
|
|
| beginning January 1972 – end December 1972 |
|
|
| end December 1972 – mid January 1973 |
|
Akt X: Mëkanïk Kömmandöh (1989) |
| mid January 1973 – March 1973 |
|
|
| March 1973 – May 1973 |
|
Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh (1973) |
| June 1973 – July 1973 |
|
|
| August 1973 – end December 1973 |
|
|
| January 1974 – March 1974 |
|
Akt XIII: BBC 1974 Londres (1999) Zühn Ẁöhl Ünsai - Live 1974 (2014) Akt XVIII: Marquee Londres 17 Mars 1974 (2018) |
| March 1974 – August 1974 |
|
Köhntarkösz (1974) |
| September 1974 – November 1974 |
|
|
| January 1975 – August 1975 |
|
Live/Hhaï (1975) |
| September 1975 – February 1976 |
|
Akt IV: Théâtre du Taur Concert 1975 Toulouse (1994) |
| March 1976 – September 1976 (first split) |
|
Üdü Ẁüdü (1976) Akt IX: Concert 1976 Opéra de Reims (1996) |
| November 1976 – January 1977 (first reformation) |
|
|
| January 1977 – mid 1977 |
|
|
| mid 1977 – end 1977 |
|
Attahk (1977) |
| January 1978 – mid 1978 |
|
|
| mid 1978 – November 1978 (second split) |
|
|
| spring 1979 – mid 1979 (second reformation) |
|
Akt XV: Bourges 1979 (2020) |
| mid 1979 – end 1979 |
|
|
| end 1979 – January 1980 |
|
|
| January 1980 – June 1980 |
| |
| June 1980 – end 1980 (reunion of old members for 3 shows) |
|
Retrospektïẁ (Parts I+II) (1981) Retrospektïẁ (Part III) (1981) |
| end 1980 – mid 1981 |
|
Akt V-VI: Concert Bobino 1981 (1995) |
| mid 1981 – beginning 1982 |
|
|
| beginning 1982 – mid 1982 |
|
|
| mid 1982 – beginning 1983 |
|
|
| beginning 1983 – end 1983 |
|
|
| end 1983 – end 1984 |
|
Merci (1985) |
| end 1984 – beginning 1985 |
|
|
| 1986 – 1990 solo projects of Christian Vander, Magma on stand by | ||
| February 1990 with OFFERING |
|
|
| 1991 |
| |
| 1992 |
| |
| 1992 – 1996 |
| |
| 1996 |
| |
| 1997 |
| |
| October 1997 – 1998 |
| |
| 1999 – 2001 |
| |
| 2002 |
| |
| March 2003 – 2005 |
| |
| beginning February 2006 – 2008 |
| |
| beginning February 2008 – 2012 |
| |
| beginning 2012 – December 2019 |
| |
| December 2019 – beginning 2022 |
| |
| beginning 2022–Present |
|
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