CHRISTIAN VANDER sits in the shadow of a room in a Kensington Hotel, an almost black figure in the darkness of the chamber. Black T-shirt, black jeans, black shoes and black hair framing a dark complexioned face. You can't tell where black ends or begins, he says. And besides, black is the colour of the state of the world right now.
It's now dusk on Sunday. The first time I saw Christian Vander was Wednesday last. He was behind a drum-kit at the Marquee Club, flanked by the rest of his band. But this wasn't the routine Marquee bop. This was Magma, and I have never, NEVER seen anything like Magma. Records in no way leave you prepared for the actual live confrontation with this cataclysmic ensemble.
Try to visualise this: a dimly lit stage, and dotted around it a number of grim faced black-clad figures, one of them a beautiful girl, shrouded in a flowing cape. Another is a tall, slim bespectacled black man, who brings a serpentine contrabass clarinet slowly too his lips and begins to play. A bald-headed bass guitarist, his instrument "Cello" tuned, pumps out intimidating, vicious lines. A bearded man, with exceptionally long hair, opens his mouth and begins to sing. So does the girl. But if you were expecting rock and roll vocals, well, forget it, you came to the wrong place. This, this is - opera, isn't it? The male singer is thrashing and clawing at the air, a rich tenor flows easily from his mouth. Several octaves up the girl sings along with him.
But the drummer, his countenance an extraordinary study of perpetually shifting leers and sneers, eyeballs turned upwards so all you can see are demented whites, suddenly changes into a furious march tempo, sticks blurring off the snare. Jeezus, what is going on? This is military madness, or a Covent Garden nightmare. Alien syllables cut through the smokey air. Clientele looks puzzled. What language is that? German? Some forgotten Slavonic tongue? Ah no, mes amis, this is Kobaïan, and the reason you've never heard its like before is simple. Christian Vander made it up.The music powers on. There's much use made of repetition, and the strange words are chanted over and over with ever increasing intensity, until the group's total emotional output becomes almost unbearable.Vander whips at the cymbals with slashing savagery. Twin keyboards tear around the throbbing bass root-notes of Jannick Top. Now the chanteurs are screaming. The clarinettist is screaming. Vander is screaming. God help us, the whole place seems to be screaming, a massive primeval cry of anguish. Crash. Silences. Stunned applause.
"Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh" says the singer, Klaus Blasquiz. Still there is no trace of a smile. Magma begin to play again, like the stirring from slumber of some great beast. It's as though they are trying to redefine heavy music. I've never heard the horsemen of the Apocalypse, but I imagine that Vander's drumming is a pretty fair approximation of otherworldly galloping hoof beats. Sheer energy! What passion! Still the voices chant and shout."Hortz fur dëhn Stekëhn West, Hortz zï wëhr dünt da Hertz....". Jannick Top begins a bass solo, utilising every inch of the fretboard. Fingers flying everywhere, he steps to the mike, and proceeds to blow a whistle that's wedged between his teeth. The shrill notes seem to slice through the brainGuitarist Claude Olmos, a tiny and emaciated figure, picks up the pulse and creates his own fantasy for a few moments before Vander solos.
Now, I hate rock drum solos, and I say that as a person who has dabbled with the instrument a little, but Vander's feature was honestly unbelievable. It wasn't just an exercise in speed, although he has that at his disposal too, but rather an object lesson in dynamics, rising from the verge of inaudibility to an earthquaking roar, and as the cacophony heightened, the drummer began to sing, his face continually contorting, head turned upwards to a suspended microphone as legs and arms flailed away. The decibel level lowered a little, Christian executed one final flourish and quit the stage. End of set.
This time there's no doubt about audience response. A mighty cheer rises, the crowd returning a little bit of the energy the band had expended. To enthuse in superlatives is always dangerous, but occasionally a situation genuinely merits it. Magma at the Marquee was such a situation. Four days after the gig, I still feel vaguely shell-shocked. I can't quite rationalise away what I saw and heard. Listening to Magma requires a lot of mental adjustment, a re-think about musical values, but it's nonetheless a shattering experience. The group are so unlike anything else on this earth, that the thrill of discovery when you first see them is just unreal, like stumbling upon the Velvet Underground must have been for questing New Yorkers. That's how important Magma are. The New York Dolls and their ilk are great fun, absolutely, but Magma are important.
And so to Sunday, and the Garden Court Hotel, where my interview created a closer relationship than the usual rock 'n' roll tête-à-tête. Vander, you see, being French by upbringing, if not by ancestry, speaks very little English, and my French is just useless, sub-"O"-level school textbook stuff. So, sitting between us, and acting as interpreter, is none other than Giorgio Gomelsky, daddy of British R'n'B, one-time manager of the Yardbirds and Julie Driscoll, and now father figure to Magma.
Perhaps I should at this point explain, for those that don't already know,
that the lyrical matter of Magma's material is a sci-fi trilogy that tells
of mankind's dealings with the planet Kobaïa, a planet itself populated
with renegade earthmen who became disenchanted with the dishonesty, uselessness,
cruelty, vulgarity and lack of humility paramount on the mother planet,
and who have developed their own language, society and technology in deep
space. However, if you think that is a sign to dismiss Magma as pretentious,
half-baked, Hawkwind-type stoned drivel, then you're making a very big mistake.
The whole allegory allows Vander to make some genuinely profound and spiritual
statements, and the music is definitely not any cheapo-cheapo space rock.
Magma's is the music of the spheres, as succinctly understood as is that
of Sun Ra or Gyorgy Ligetti, or Gustav Holst, even, if you prefer a more
accessible example. Vander has devised his own category for the music of
which, incidentally, he is the prime composer. He calls it "Zeuhl Music"
("Zeuhl" rhymes approximately with "earl"), and this Kobaïan word is as
much a comment on the intent of the music as it is the sound. Zeuhl music
is that which attains to higher ideals than the strictly material values
of most pop or rock. Christian is fairly contemptuous of people who would
deny the spiritual, or restrict their vision to earthly triviality.
"Most people now have too much self-esteem," he says through Gomelsky, "believing
that humans are the highest possible thing. It is very evident that you
should have aims higher than you are: live to contribute something rather
than just survive. "Until you reach the highest state you can get to, you
are always nothing compared to the universe." If that sounds fair enough,
but you still feel overwhelmed at the prospect of listening to a verbal
assault in a foreign tongue, then consider this.T he Continent has now,
for the best part of twenty years, been dancing to English and American
pop music of which the bulk of its populace understands nary a word. Thus
for French fans, it was no big deal that Magma sang in another language.
And if you stop to think about it, maybe it isn't such a big deal anyway.
Christian says that Kobaïan is a language to be felt rather than precisely
understood; to be sung rather than spoken. But in case anyone is really
perturbed, he's working on a Kobaïa-to-Earth language dictionary.
The origin of the language makes an interesting little anecdote. Prior to Magma, Christian was playing in a fairly sordid casino, laying down Coltrane-inspired jazz, but the audience was not aware, or did not want to be aware of what the group was doing. So, "I tried to explain to the audience that lots of musicians with really fabulous things to say practically committed suicide through their sadness at not being understood, like Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker." "But they did not listen. And I am ashamed to say that I came to hate them so much in that moment, that the words that came pouring out of me were so strong that it was better that they could not understand them. It was better that they were not in French. In that moment I wished them all dead, and that is unusual because I have a great respect for life - rightly or wrongly."
John Coltrane was the great spiritual love of Vander's life because he was playing for his time, rather than making "music for the future." Any music that purports to be avant-garde says Vander, is out of touch with reality. Magma's intention is not to play for any elite, but rather to educate the mass audience to the appropriate level, or rather as Christian puts it, to simply make the audience more aware. Vander is passionately convinced of the importance of Magma. "Before Magma, Coltrane was more important than anyone to me. Now I love Magma most, and Coltrane just immediately after. I will explain why. When you put all your emotions and all your feelings into something, it's logical that you're going to love that thing more than any other. Previously Coltrane was always closest to my heart, but it wasn't my heart in fact, it was Coltrane's. But playing his music helped me to find my own."
By the time you read this, Magma will be winging their way back to their Paris residence. But fear not, they'll be back. The third album from the group 'Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh' the first to be released in Britain will be available on A&M in January. And live performances here will recommence in February, when the group Nico will support the band, who are ardent fans of Magma. Nico, says Gomelsky, plays Zeuhl music too. I wouldn't doubt that for a moment. So, that's one tour you miss out on at your peril. Don't say you haven't been warned.
Curse of Magma's bassist: A Scots road manager tells how he once worked for French band Magma when they were playing in Ibiza. He was sharing a room with Jannick Top, the bass guitarist. At the gig the previous evening there had been bad vibes between Top and Christian Vander. The Scots roadie awoke in the middle of the night, frightened by horrible screams. He turned on the light and saw that Top had on his arms sets of three prong marks, as from a trident, with blood pouring from them. He began shouting at the roadie to draw a chalk circle on the floor. Petrified, he began chalking as ordered without knowing what he was doing. Eventually the bleeding stopped. The roadie then left the band, which shortly afterwards changed its line-up. The theory was that a curse had been put upon the bass player.
We took a listen the other week (talk about topicality!) to the new album by Magma, 'Köhntarkösz'. It's another incredible work, better I would say than its predecessor 'Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh', not least because the emphasis is off the vocal parts and more into instrumental exploration.
It's even heavier than the last, if that's possible, and like many of Christian Vander's compositions features an extremely dense and oppressive first part with a second which opens out.
These two movements occupy both sides of the record though there are a couple of short tributes to Vander's musical guru John Coltrane - one of Coltrane's own pieces and one of Vander's own which features a million cellos.
I heard the record as it was being cut at RCA's cutting room, which is hidden away not half a mile from where I live (to my surprise). A 15000Hz tone had somehow sneaked its way on to the second side of the disc, which was causing the engineers a certain amount of concern.
Mr. Gomelsky (who else?) was on hand to declare that it was a psychic signal from Coltrane. The Big G declared that 'Köhntarkösz' is the story of entry into the tomb. Check it out when it arrives; you can't afford to miss it (or words to that effect).
MAGMA, Gong, Kevin Coyne, Hatfield And The North, Isotope, Lol Coxhill, and Byzantium are the latest additions to the Windsor Free Festival bill later this month. All the bands will appear on August 26 and it will be Magma's only British appearance. On the same bill will be Keith Christmas and Steve Miller. The Festival runs for nine days from August 24.
A Diet of savagery that in it's "discipline in the dark" is far more menacing than any clean-cut heavy metal brutality, was dealt out at the New Victoria last Saturday.
Magma, if not in a tailored space, certainly were gifted with a made-to-measure
audience. The hall was less than a third full, but judging by the whistles
and applause you could have been fooled into thinking you'd caught Aretha
at the Fillmore.
"C'mon Vander, my man, tell it like it is."
Well, rumour has it that Christian Vander holds forth some philosophical
theories, looming even larger than his biceps, encompassing genetic supremacy,
interstellar energy and the ultimate power of the will over all else. I
say "rumour" because Vander and his gang have never given their views directly
to the press. The word of mouth report eventually shortened theory to a
sentence and landed them with a neo-Nazi tag. Justified or not, collaboration
is in order. The present line-up includes two keyboards and two vocalists,
one male taking his gestures from stylised Japanese theatre, and one female
(Vander's wife), both of whose vocal gymnastics are carried out in a language
invented over the years by, who else, Christian Vander. The bass, violin,
and guitar, noted for two-note solos, are manned by heavy-handed followers
whose playing has the effect of crocodiles sawing your head off with irregularly
spaced teeth while rolling their eyes in Gothic horror.
Vander's aura could well be described "inter-stellar energy": at times he was so fast that he appeared only as a blur surrounded by drums and the cymbals."Yeah, like an eggbeater."Okay, but machines and other drummers don't vary their striking force from a touch to a bash and back in high speed. He did. It was when Vander eased off the beat and onto the vocals that the dark nasty visions took over. His voice, a low monotone, slipped into some kind of scat, more like stutter singing it w-w-w-was un-n-nb-bearable.
They don't even bother to announce the titles of each song. Probably they expect that their audience has memorized the sleeves of their records (also in their private language) or possibly that there is precious little difference between numbers anyway. The entire first half of the set has instrumentation pulsating like a headache, complemented by the choral bit like maidens descending into the Garden of Valhalla in a B-grade Italian film. The last half, however, is Mr. Vander, bathed in blue light (reminiscent of Dr. Caligari) for an endless drum solo. Technically, he's brilliant: but a thirty-minute drum solo is merciless. Since no one else in the group displays enough individual personality to distract your attention you leave with an after image of Vander's eyes and a subliminal thudding in an unlit attic of your mind. If there were six more of Vander, or a Nuremberg rally chorus, this may have been frightening music; but staged fear and entertainment need a more imposing presentation to keep you from counting the polyrhythms of a showcased drummer.
Editors note: I have included Jannick's photo, which was printed with the original review - but the bassist at the New Victoria was Bernard Paganotti.