FULMINES REGULARIS

MUSIQUE NOISE

(Musea FGBG 2028)

A review of this 1989 Zeuhl album seems long overdue in Ork Alarm! but the album may be becoming hard to find now that Musea are discontinuing their vinyl stocks. But for what it's worth, these are my feelings about an album that I've had lying around for ages now, but have never been totally satisfied by. MUSIQUE NOISE are a relatively new line-up from Paris, they are not simply another copy of MAGMA, rather they are a progression in line with the way Vander's music was developing in 1979. It's as if they have taken the path that MAGMA might have followed if Vander had not diverged in 1980 towards the Otis Redding, John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner homages of the 80's.

'Fulmines Regularis' opens with 'Pas Encore', which initially seems to be a mock Kobaïenne vocal driven piece in the style of ESKATON and ALTAIS, with wedges of MAGMA from the 'Üdü Wüdü' era. The mid section of the piece is based around a slow sax refrain with ostinato Kobaïan vocals somewhat like parts of 'Mekanïk. The track concludes with a bass / drum pattern again heavily influenced by Vander and Paganotti. The second song 'Unique au Monde', is more like ANAID in both vocal content and its jazzy structure, but this time with similarities to PHILEAS FOGG and late period ZAO. Finally, just when you think they have exhausted the plagiarism they round the whole thing off with some WEIDORJE style synth.

For sure, it is not breaking any new ground, musically, but the LP is worth buying just for the first track. Side one ends with 'Mise au point' which is undoubtedly Musique Post-Atomique and could easily be mistaken for an outtake from any ESKATON album, not surprising when you notice that the album was engineered by ESKATON's pianist, Marc Rozenberg and vocalist, Amara Tahir.

Flipping the record over one gets a feeling of trepidation in case every other member of the Magma school is about to receive a brief exhumation. Thankfully however, this side is almost entirely all their own work, with just the occasional doff of the cap to the ESKATON college of composition. It begins with a Carl Orff operatic feel over a tense, ever building keyboard backing. Unfortunately the results are not as intriguing as most of side one. The next track, 'L'étroit Huit' is much more original and quite a convoluted composition. The general mood is sombre but the quirky 70's organ sound is disquieting and the female vocalists begin to grate towards the ending. The bass playing on this one has an Ourgon-Gorgo flavour of MAGMA circa '79 that is quite satisfying. The final track 'Pzkr!' is a disappointment and I feel it contributes just a little annoyance to spoil an otherwise interesting album.

Overall 'Fulmines Regularis' strikes me as a fair example of the variety of music available from Les Enfants du Magma, and if you enjoy ESKATON, this is pretty close to any of their work. If you have never heard some of the bands referred to above, then I suggest you buy this MUSIQUE NOISE album before it becomes as rare as all the other classic albums by those other Zeuhl groups. Since as you will hopefully have gathered, I do actually like much of this album, I think that Bernard Gueffier's opinion on the album is worth including, (please note that Musea is Bernard's own record label).

This new group offer one of the most exciting and superb examples of actual Zeuhl music, with powerful, fiery themes on which rise the female and male vocals in the best MAGMA and ESKATON vocal tradition and which are enlightened by fantastic sax or keyboard parts. They are dynamic, with tremendous melodies containing complex developments and hyper-elaborated arrangements. Better than other Zeuhl groups because of their great technical talent and original inspiration and sumptuous Carl Orff - like choirs.

Personnel

Other recordings

One track 'Villiers' on the sampler CD 'Enneade' - Musea FGBG 4005 (1988)

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