And now, a third solo album from Christian Vander. After the majesty of 'Wurdah Ïtah' and the sheer beauty of 'To Love', what can we expect from Christian on the new label?
For the last six months I had heard stories of a "Son et Lumiere" in which Christian had played piano and narrated the story of Christopher Columbus' epic voyage of discovery. This had been performed in the streets of Reims as part of the Automnales de Reims, celebrating the 500th anniversary on 26-09-92. I also heard rumours from those who had seen a video of the show, that the best piece of music was 'La Marche Celeste' From that I deduced that the new material was not particularly inspiring.
So
here it is at last, the new album (42 minutes of music and narration). Christian
composed and recorded the work in two weeks prior to the street spectacle, with
the help of Stella Vander who programmed the synths and generated the sound
effects.
That was the first surprise; I'd been expecting a piano soundtrack, but the score is all electronic.
1. 'La ville de Palos' - Starts with an uninspiring film music style followed by a short narrative by Christian then some loud sound effects. After about four minutes of this, the initial refrain of 'La Marche Celeste' begins, but the story of Columbus overpowers the music.
2. 'Voyages en la mer océane' - I begin to realise that this album is designed for the French speaking world and does not have a lot of commercial potential outside of that market. From the evidence of the first half of the album, the musical content would seem to be an inconsequential backing track for the story (which is quite naturally all in French) - Strange that the album should be subtitled "Musiques". 'Douarnenez 1992' (AKT I) was subtitled "Les Voix", and "Nëhèh' (AKT II) was known as "Sons". Both of which are apt, but if this is the musical album of the series, I wonder what AKT will call the 'Toulouse 1976' album?
In his role as the voice of the Admiral Columbus, Christian is pervasive and while the music has many short passages of interest it takes a markedly subsidiary role - equal in prominence with the sound effects, which I must say are quite spectacular!
The second part of the story concludes with a passage lifted from 'Eliphas Levi', which sounds like Guy Khalifa's flute but is probably Christian revisiting a favourite tune on synthesiser.
3. 'L'utopie'- Immediately this piece started playing, my glum expectations cleared and I knew the album would get more interesting in the second half. The intro tapes that Georges Besnier played before the band came onstage at the Paris concerts of Les Voix de Magma had a peculiar flavour of Vanderienne composition. But I had thought no more about them, believing them to be simply something that Christian thought worthwhile for a concert introduction. However it now transpires that they were the musical segments from the second half of this album. The theme of 'L'utopie' has a certain energetic excitement that stirs a thrill in me, like the joy I get every time I listen to 'Undïa' (the version used in the Tristan et Yseult movie, not 'The Unnamables' album cut which has less power than the 1971 demo tapes). The narration on this track is more evenly matched with the music, and reminds me of the stage show that ANGE performed in April 1990 (a ballet called 'Sève qui peut').
4. 'L'orage mystique' - Again this was played just before the Paris concerts last October. Tumultuous surges of choral backing and intense multi-tracked keyboards provide a worthy film soundtrack for a historical drama. While the music is not recognisably Magmaïenne, and certainly nothing like tile classic 'Wurdah Ïtah' album, these last two tracks have some stirring moments and the narration does not detract too much from their intensity. Perhaps the sound effects are too loud but on the other hand I can see how important they would have been in the overall performance coupled with a light show. Those of you who were disappointed with "Sons" should at least prefer "Musiques", but I could not honestly recommend this album to anyone who has not already got all the Seventh Records releases. It is another one for the collectors, I fear - but not a failure, just Vander exhibiting another facet of his talents.
Ehn Aïmaah 1993
(But, for a more positive response: read Jim's review below - Ed.)
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