Magma

In case you hadn't noticed, I tend to listen to some pretty strange music sometimes. If you really hadn't noticed, perhaps you will now. Magma are one of those wonderful bands from the 70's who fit into the "Progressive" or "art rock" movement which was well known for its insatiable appetite for pretentious excesses and grandiose silliness. In brief, Magma is the brainchild of French drummer Christian Vander who dreamed up this neat story about the twilight apocalyptic years of the planet Earth and our interactions at that time with the planet Kobaia. Because he was such an awfully clever chap (or "chappe" as the French would say), he decided to tell the story from the perspective of the Kobaians - and to really do it right invented the Kobaian language in which each album would be performed. Yes, that's right, you can really go dig up 10 or so albums by these guys all sung in perfect Kobaian, all with catchy titles like "Udu Wudu" and "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandeoh" and "Kohnterkoszh". I don't think they ever finished the story, so if you've been waiting for years to find out what happens in the end, now's your chance to go ask Mr. Vander.

Links of note:

Background on Magma: http://www.furious.com/perfect/magma.html.

More Magma info: http://www.multimania.com/ojouan/.

If you'd like, you can email me here: richard@hearingmusic.com.

Oh, and all content on these pages is copyright Richard Lewis.