Magma

Saperlipopette! wrote: To me its like using Nazi imagery as other bands or artists would imitate satan and use satanic images. Magma is an all inclusive gesamtkunstwerk. Whenever one fails to understand how an artist you admire (or not) can do outrageous things such as imitate Hitler speeches* in the middle of a drum solo, collect swastika flags and pictures of Hitler - creating great, meaningful art is in many ways about "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto" or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me" (quote by the Roman writer Terance). To create Zeuhl you need to understand evil. I think all this suspicion seems to come from lack of imagination and not understanding creativity.  *used to great effect on Stöah from their debut album so its not some dirty, hidden secret but a natural part of the musical drama.

Not religious, not spiritual, don't believe in any of it.

That being said it doesn't matter what this guy supported.

Should I not listen to Richard Wagner because he was an antisemite? No. I like Ride of the Valkyries and that is that. Should I never watch Se7en or The Usual Suspects just because Kevin Spacey is in it and he went after a minor and all? No. I like those movies.

I can like music and not like the composer/musician. I don't like Itzhak Perlman and his raunchy attitude. But I still love the soundtrack to Schindler's List.

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In the end it doesn't matter two craps. If you like the music, then listen to it. Any bad mood you get because of the musicians is your own fault, and not the fault of the music's.

It doesn't not matter one bit whether Vander is great, or a Nazi sympathizer (I bet 100% that he isn't though). It doesn't matter whether a person is gay, straight, bisexual, a Nazi, a Republican, a Libertarian, a Democrat, a Christian, or a Muslim.

The music isn't the person, and if you stop liking or listening to music because some writer is a nasty person, then you have only proven your musical tastes to be shallow and dependent on bias against people groups, instead of about what the music makes you feel.

Music isn't the musician. Learn to separate them. Otherwise you'll find that most music you can't listen to, because someone associated with it was a terrible person (by your subjective and biased opinion of what is or is not terrible).

Logan wrote: Done research into it. Just reading CD booklets gives information about the mythology, but also from reading websites about the mythology (the albums tell a story and he draws on different mythologies and inspirations such as Egyptian mythology) and from the Kobaian-English dictionaries (prepared by fans, so I won't claim accuracy). Some of us spoke Kobaian here quite well at one time. I have forgotten most of it mostly as there is no one here, that I'm aware of, to use it with any longer -- mostly it was used to insult, confuse and threaten Dream Theater fans while praising Magma (all in good fun, I assure you). We were just asserting our geeky superiority in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. Magma iss de hundin, wurdah Dream Theater! He chose Kobaian for the sound, and I won't say that it all means something, but many Kobaian words have meaning, such as theusz hamtaahk, which means Time of Hate. This site goes into some of the story: http://www.furious.com/perfect/magma.html And http://artist-shop.com/seventh/index.htm And here's an old fan prepared dictionary: http://web.archive.org/web/20091021064935/http://geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/8366/MAGMA-KOBAIAN-dictionary.html Some of what I said in another thread on this topic is, my little interpretation and positing (from http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=111673&PN=4 ): For those that don't know, the bad times in Kobaian mythology is Theusz Hamtaahk, the Time of Hate. I've thought that the Kobaian mythology might be an extension of what might have happened in a parallel universe if Naziism had prevailed. Despite the darkness of Nazi like totalitarianism, eventually the human, or Kobaian I might say, spirit prevailed over the darkness and the dictatorship crumbled and so we get to the time of love. It's a fantasy based on humanity that draws on history. It's quite an Orwellian story only with a more positive message, we can triumph over evil, unlike in 1984 where you imagine a boot stomping on a face for ever. Magma is ultimately uplifting, and spiritual.... The story starts off dystopian and turns Utopian.   A bit like a 1984 type totalitarian world, only referencing Naziism in particular rather than the communism that Orwell referenced, becomes more like the Chronicles of Narnia. Which was me being rather too fanciful perhaps (but I like draw in my own references to make a fuller experience).

I believe I have read from those links all that´s about the Magma mytology (those Seventh Records sites didn´t have much of that, mostly it´s from the music of those albums as far as I noticed). There are still lots of open questions: for example I suppose album tittle Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandöh is a person, is he the Hitler like evil-person and the leader in Earth? I believe he really isn´t that spiritualist Nebehr Gudahtt. Also there are not much for Theusz Hamtaahk (first part) & Wurdah Itah, I mean what´s happening in those sections. Also, are newer albums Felicite Thösz & Sl*g Tanz some part of the story?

Edited by Mortte - August 16 2018 at 06:43

YESESIS wrote: Well I might acknowledge my potential for evil, but I'm not going to fully embrace it and start collecting swastikas and trying to imitate Hitler or anything. I think that would be taking it too far. Like I said before though, I'm going to go with what Logan said and just give the man the benefit of the doubt for now and accept that he was young then(we all make some mistakes when we're younger) and probably isn't that way now.

I've made my point I'm sure. 

For me, music is something to listen to and not to meditate on. But that's just me. Anyway, I don't think that the work of Christian Vander should be placed in a political context, not even when the Orffian choirs and some Kobaïan vocals invoke associations with interbellum-German. And what to think about the marching hammers in The Wall? No one blamed Roger Waters for having Nazi sympathies. And justly, for the antisemitism and involvement in the BDS-movement, which earned him a fouth place in a top 10 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center some years ago, date from a later period. Yet his latest album found an appropriate place in my top 20 of 2017.

Edited by someone_else - August 17 2018 at 02:58

Saperlipopette! wrote: YESESIS wrote: Well I might acknowledge my potential for evil, but I'm not going to fully embrace it and start collecting swastikas and trying to imitate Hitler or anything. I think that would be taking it too far. Like I said before though, I'm going to go with what Logan said and just give the man the benefit of the doubt for now and accept that he was young then(we all make some mistakes when we're younger) and probably isn't that way now.  I've made my point I'm sure.  -But here we have this eccentric artist whose greatest idol is John Coltrane (he literally worships/worshipped him), whose band has been multiethnic from the start and whose ex-wife is jewish. Cut him some slack and stop spreading these rumours that when out there on the internet - is almost impossible to defend oneself from. He is not a nazi - never was. Come on! Thinking he is you got to pretend to be more stupid than you are. Magma's estehetics and music flirts with totalitarian imagery... from their cultlike robes, logos, fonts and general bombast. Sometimes they sound like war. Its intentional of course. Totalitarian imagery is both repulsive and fascinating to many (including myself). Whether communist, Nazi or something else it has seduced hundreds of millions of people throughout history... and still does. Magma's very debut is about the destruction of planet earth and this group of people fleeing from it to live on planet Kobaïa - because man has made earth uninhabitable. Its a warning. Imo Collecting swastikas etc... isn't a mistake you so generously need to forgive the artist as a young man. Because the young artist hasn't done anything wrong. People should ask Vander to forgive them instead.  Wow, chill man. Nowhere did I say that he is/was. I've said that he seems like a cool guy and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt as far as collecting swastikas and whatever when he was younger.

 

You realize that still qualifies as science fiction right? This is a speculative fiction about a future people, using spaceflight to go to another planet, and start a civilization there.

That is literally science fiction in every sense.

BTW:

Collecting things doesn't make you a Nazi. I have my own collection of Nazi coinage, paper money, and a few other items (even a Luger). I detest Nazism though. I just keep the stuff for the historical importance.

YESESIS wrote: Wow, chill man. Nowhere did I say that he is/was. I've said that he seems like a cool guy and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt as far as collecting swastikas and whatever when he was younger.

Well when you quote me in caps lock it doesn't look like I'm chill - which I am. However I wouldn't be chilling' if people on the internet kept digging up nazi rumours about me based on next to nothing. This is not the first time you've been discussing this on these boards. Do you understand how much such things can hurt both a career and a person? Even when untrue they stick.

Edited by Saperlipopette! - August 18 2018 at 14:31

YESESIS wrote: ^ I'm sure you'll get over it.

Its not about me or me getting over it though - 'cause nobody knows about my huge swastika-collection (A JOKE). I only wish "you" understood... I mean like really understood that this can do harm to an artist who doesn't deserve it.

^Of course a nazi-suspicion do harm. Its pretty much the most damaging label of all to be associated with - and this post of yours viewed 2200 times logically adds harm. And if you "know" that you shouldn't have started the thread in the first place there must be a reason for it. The positive thing is that practically every contributor here has defended him of laughed at the accusation.