OFFERING PART I / PART II

This album is a continuation of Christian Vander`s ever expanding vision, most of these songs were written long before magma released their swansong (Merci) Personally i LOVE all songs on this album...

It starts of with a freefloat jazz zeuhl song with beautiful vocals by Stella Vander, and evolves into a real pretty tune with lots of different elements working in the background, this song floats right into the next song "Earth" which is the closest Offering ever came to Magma related music, here Vander screams out his lungs with such a creepy passions and it gets to a point where the music goes way beyond music, this song last for 10 minutes and when it is fisished it glides straight into "Joia" which is a more chill out song and have a repeted pattern nealry all way through only interrupted by a genoius breakdown with only percussion and congas, then goes into the same repetetive motive, this song will grow on you, but i must admit i found this song quite boring at first, now its one of the very best on the album, then (again) it glides into "C Est Pour Nous" (It`s for Us) which is the "hit" on the record, a very uplifting song with the best "scatting" ever done on a record (Forget Scatman John please) , Vander sings magnificent on this song, a really must hear song (and for some reason i find the song to be a sort of Udu Wudu part II, play first that song and put this on straight afterwards)

Then we come to Lp2 (only one cd) it starts of with "Love In The Darkness" which is a stripped down version of the song "Oh Oh Baby" from "Merci" , but here we dont get the TERRIBLE drummachine that features and ruins the song on "Merci" , this version have only Vocals and Piano from Vander, very relaxing song. Then we get a short sweet interlude with "Tilim M'Dohm" which is also a very intresting song, which has a cool rhytm pattern, no drums only percussion The Next song is the only song i dont feel fits on this album (Probably cause its the only song NOT written By Mr Vander) this song features only Guy Khalifa on piano, not bad but not really working for me, but the next song "Solitude" is a very sweet ballad dedicated to John Coltrane (The whole Offering Affair is one big Coltrane Tribute, Even the name is from a Coltrane Song, Check that one out along with "Expression" , and this song is pure heaven, very smooth and very intimate and probably very personal to Christian Vander The album closes with another calm one, this one is even calmer than the last and man it works, the mood i get in by listening to this album can`t be summoned by words at all, but this song features only piano and Christian Singing, and i wonder what he says in the beginning of the song, i think its something about the piano should be a little faster, i May be wrong on this, since i cant speak or write french at all....

Don`t hesitate buying this record, and please don`t take other Magma fans words about this album too serious, I think it stands up just as well as Mdk Or attahk for that matter, this is Vander`s Vision beyond Magma, and man it works for me, If you are intrested in buying this, I reccomend you get the complete Offering Boxset, with 4 cd`s and a bonus track (Out of This World, Written by Coltrane) Recorded In 1987, The boxset isnt that expensive and can be bought at seventhrecords.com Or mellotronen.com

A solid 5.5 stars for this release (if they had taken out "mazur" it would be a solid 6)

HIGHLY RECCOMENABLE

(if you like prog/zeuhl/jazz/R.i.o. ...ect)