ARCHIW I & II

This double album was originally released as part of the box set collection Studio Zund and later released by Seventh Records on its digital store as an autonomous work. As you can guess from the title, it's a mixed bag of material taken from the band's archives and the quality of the sources is not always impeccable (to say the least). According to the liner notes, the first seven tracks had been originally composed for the soundtrack of the film "24 heures seulement" (a film about the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world's oldest active endurance racing event). The pieces were recorded in July 1970 at the Europa Sonor Studio and soon forgotten... An alternative version of "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh" closes the first CD. It was recorded in April 1973 at the Manor Studios (England) and previously released as bonus track on the 1988 CD re-release of the "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh" album. In this case the sound quality is good... Unfortunately I can't say the same for the first eight tracks of the second CD, demo versions of Magma's debut album, "Kobaia", recorded by the band in April 1970 and that can be considered just an interesting document of the band's creativity. An alternative version of "Eliphas Levi", taken from the recording sessions of the 1983 album "Merci", closes this album that I can recommend only to collectors and die-hard fans...