Magma?

 â€”  I have a lot to say about “MDKâ€�. This was my first zeuhl album and it is not surprising I am bubbling with impatience to express my opinion. Having read a gread deal of reviews on MAGMA, I was so intrigued by it that a secret masochistic desire (masochistic because allegedly some people, if we are to believe their reviews, felt the urge to vomit after hearing MAGMA) to listen to one of their albums was never leaving me afterwards. Somehow I expected to hear what I have eventually heard and somehow I had always known I would like it. Some people perhaps have a natural predilection for zeuhl although they might have never heard it. I remember, when I was a ten year old kid, and frequently bored at home or just in need of a change, I would pace to and fro in my room and chant some crazy tunes, first in my native Russian (making up purposefully meaningless lyrics as I sang), and later it turned into simple exploration of my voice accompanied with rather strange dancing. My voice was horrible, I knew it all the time, but it was insignificant in comparison with the weird artistic form of expression I had discovered for myself. Of course, I knew nothing about zeuhl then, and my amateurish, playful and silly singing was not zeuhl – it was rather a primitive joy of music (in fact, zeuhl has the same roots, that is, the primitive joy of and celebration of music, which Christian Vander implied, in my opinion, in some of his interviews). But in this unprejudiced feeling for pure music I find my liking for MAGMA. You may think that with my apparently bizarre childhood and liking for MAGMA my prog “orientationâ€� might be a bit rainbowish too. But yet, my five most favourite prog bands are PINK FLOYD, GENESIS, ÄNGLAGÃ…RD, PORCUPINE TREE and MARILLION, liked and respected by every proghead, irrespective of his attitude to zeuhl.

MAGMA reminds me slightly of a famous Russian group AUCTYON (unfortunately, still not present at progarchives.com) with which I became acquainted when I was sixteen or so. AUCTYON is a mix of traditional rock, RIO and probably zeuhl (in its Russian form). I love AUCTYON dearly to this day. And I think AUCTYON was another preparatory stage which allowed me to take MAGMA calmly and with an avid interest, unlike some people who rate MAGMA’s albums with one star.

Now, about the very album, “Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh�. It is very difficult to rate it for me, since I have not heard any other zeuhl albums yet. It is like asking someone at the beginning of the 20th century to rate the music of Britney Spears. I am sure, poor Britney would be considered sheer prog just because her “Hit me baby one more time� would seem somewhere around 1900 as original, innovative and technically highly accomplished music. The same to me is zeuhl – I have nothing to compare it with, and as it sounds fantastic and delightful (and invokes in my mind the songs which witches in fairytales would sing, when meeting in great numbers at the top of the hill under the full moon), I am tempted to give it all five stars. And the more I listen to it the more I like it. The same recurring rhythm and the minimalism principle have a hypnotic quality and I may play and enjoy the album five times a day. The parts I like most is where the women sing with great effect something like “Yes, …!�, “Yes, …!� … (around 7:50 of “Hortz Fur Dehn Stekehn West� and especially around 6:07 of “Da Zeuhl Wortz Mekanik�). “Nebehr_Gudahtt� is almost hysterical – in this I agree with one of the reviewers.

In summary, I give “MDK� four and a half stars. Four is too few because not many other albums in the last year or so had such a profound influence on me, and five is too many since I cannot (or still am not bold enough) to number “MDK� among “Wish You Were Here�, “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway� and “Epilog�. But I think four and a half stars is a very high rating nevertheless, and I am dying to listen to my next MAGMA album (which I already have), “1001 Centigrades�.