MAGMA [AKA: KOBAÏA]

It's finally that time...time for me to start slowly reviewing all of the studio albums by one of my all-time favorite bands. I've been putting this off for months, not sure where to start, or how exactly to do it without being too biased, etc. I decided to start, of all places, at the beginning. Not my first Magma album, that was MDK. I'll get to that one in a while. But now, it's time for us to visit Kobaïa.

This album must have been a real eye/ear/mind-opener back when it was released in 1970. It, along with Amon Düül II's Phallus Dei, is one of the hardest-hitting debuts I've had the good fortune of hearing. Jazzy, bizarre, and alien, this album will really be a trip the first several times you hear it. It also happens to be 83 minutes or so of music, which was a daring move with such an unusual style of music. The band lures you in with a groovy, jazzy tune, then proceeds to take everything off on tangents from there...veering into avant-garde territory fairly regularly, though only showing hints of their sound to come on MDK (1001 Degrees Centigrade is a quite unique entry in the band's discography as well). Stella and her fellow female vocalists are absent here, as is the absolutely all-encompassing thundering bass. In their place, though, we have wind instruments and the (slightly) more normal, yet still addictive basslines of Francis Moze. Vander is his usual behemoth behind the drumkit, and is already providing some of his bizarre vocal performances. Everyone involved puts in top-notch instrumental/vocal performances here, really.

This album, though an oddity of sorts in the band's discography, has grown to be one of my favorites over the last year or so. I think it deserves no less than 5-stars; a daring, adventurous debut like no other.