CHRISTIAN VANDER: TRISTAN ET ISEULT [AKA: ẀURDAH ÏTAH] (OST)

More Magma means more Innovation, diversity, originality, intensity, dynamic hyper-music, Kobaian language... This is Magma! No actually it is Christian Vander's solo album?

So I avoided this thinking it was just going to be a diversion from the awesome magma sound of the 70s, namely masterpiece MDK. However, this follow up is unbelievably similar and really sounds like Magma, delightfully not like a solo album. Bombastic rhythms, Kobaian, female vocals, Janick Top's bass, Stella Vander's shrieks and sopranoisms, Klaus Blasquiz's vocal intonations, and wild percussion, and of course Vander's manic screams and low groans and Gregorian chants pervade the sound, along with his sporadic drumming and crashing piano, and Fender Rhodes instrumentation.

From end to end the album squelches out the chunk and funk sounds of Magma, the recipe consisting of a concoction of moderate jazz, rinsed liberally in tribal chants and drained with opera chants. The Teutonic alien language based on some alien civilisation is as bizarre as anything on other Magma albums. There are flavours of RIO and Krautrock, with generous slices of avant garde and dollops of Wagnerian Opera. It is impossible to single out the tracks as they kind of run together mixed in a blender, but it really takes off on 'Ẁohldünt M/ëm Dëẁëlëss' that sounds so much like the material on MDK, that I thought I had put the wrong album on. The formula is so right for magma, and they occasionally plagiarise themselves without complaints from me. The signature sound is powerful and haunting and it seeps into your system after a while causing an addiction to their uncanny and creepy meanderings. At times one may pick up words but it is only an illusion as nothing is intelligible.

Side 2 is a real ear opener with bizarre screechings to begin and then the violins slice out a rather disconcerting signature. The chants begin and follow the violin slices with admirable precision. One must take an excursion into the murky Zeuhl territory and at least hear the MDK Magmasterpiece, though admittedly it is definitely not for the faint hearted. Depending on your mood at the time may depend on your overall impression, but you can let the music take you into which ever direction it decides as personal interpretation is essential in the Magmaverse. The vocals are an absolute delight and you will hear Gregorian chanting, choral yelling, high octave shrills and deep resonances. As usual vocalists Stella Vander and her estranged husband are the centrifugal force of this album. The intensity of polyrhythmic time signatures are intense, and at times the music takes surprising detours, such as 'Sëhnntëht Dros Ẁurdah Süms' with all that fast paced rhythmic jangling and tweaking.

The sound is stripped down on the album though without massive choirs, big brass sounds and multiple instrumentation, but it exudes a charm of its own as a result. There are sustained atonal chord progressions and tribal drumming metrical patterns throughout and an everpresent piano played like nothing I have ever heard since MDK. The repetition is entrancing, with all the staccato stabs that darken the sound and these are contrasted by very light passages of minimalist strings and serene choral vocals. There is a real tension and release, like gravity forced up and down along the soundwaves. Repetitious mantras are a key feature of the Magma sound, primitive tribalisations and Vander himself are a centrifugal force of the Magmaverse, but it is so well executed on this sparser lineup, that it is quite a stunning achievement. It is anti-music atonal jazz certainly, but Magma stand alone and proud as their own entity, and Vander has created a solo album of hypnotic and compelling soul stirring constituent Zeuhl.