RETROSPEKTÏẁ I-II

retrospectiw I-II documents the 2/3 of the infamous theusz hamtaahk trilogy while being "the best" compilation album for magma it is also a showcase of magma's live performance... and the material here is simply superior anything heard before the album opens with "theusz hamtaahk" famous never "studio-recorded" first movement of the trilogy shares the same name and what we heard is simply the best performance of this song while bbc recording was lacking the strong punch hide in the music this one finds it and turns the song into one scary, untrustworthy experience especially blasquiz's vocals are the winner here he really carries the song for solid 36 minutes... the other song is the third movement of the (so called) theusz hamtaahk trilogy the amazing mekanik destrüktiw kommandöh. this is the part where things get complicated for me because while being a huge fan of the original mix of the kommandöh and really adore the brass parts vander was thinking otherwise and he was unhappy with the mixing of the album in his mind the brass lines were occupying too much space while zeuhl music was identify itself with strong rhythm section so this signature rhythm section need to be heard by the audience so what did vander do he clean all the brass line and re-arranged song with thundering drums and basses so all these live shows/"shows" this approach and i'm not saying that this is a bad performance i mean this is a freakin' genius performance about middle of the song the music breaks down and we hear top begins moving to "de futura" than violin solo jumps in out of nowhere and blews our minds after that we are connected to epic ending of the kommandöh this is very very solid performance and closer to the vander's plans but without brass kommandöh just can't give me that satisfaction it just dont look that grand or epic anymore and those are very personal matters and about musical tastes and all that never changes the fact that this is the maybe one of the most solid live album in the annals of prog. rock and deserves a credit for solid musicianship and performance my humble opinion goes along with those numbers 5/5