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How to describe the music of Magma is quite a quandary
...the French collective's oeuvre over the past forty years being of so consistently deeply peculiar a nature as to confound any attempts at easy pigeonholing. Prog jazz opera? Sci-fi rock? Heavy gothic classical? The band, or rather their drummer and leader Christian Vander, even invented a new language in which to sing their songs, and a name to categorise it - Zeuhl. The only slightly jokey description of 'Klingon opera' has been applied in the past, which at least manages to capture the bombastic otherness of their efforts.
All of which considered, any UK appearance is to be considered an event, doubly so tonight at the Barbican where esoterica guru Andy Votel has curated them into a night titled Celestial Mass. Opening are a band who, as much as anyone can, match the bizarre adventurousness of the headliners. The massed troops of Chrome Hoof march onto stage clad in sliver gowns and cowls, with the odd pair of trainers poking out incongruously beneath. A harpist opens proceedings before the dozen or so other band members churn up a fractured groove which recalls variously Cardiacs, Sly and Family Stone, Meshuggah and Hot Gossip.
So far so good, but the guest appearance of the apparently legendary French producer JP Massiera brings a price for the collaborative adventure. White haired and elegantly dressed, he shambles onstage accompanied by the two Chrome Hoof dancers. As he beams amiably about the stage, the suspicion soon arises that either Massiera is suffering monumental stage-fright or has been indulging in beaucoup quantities of the backstage rider. Rather than the French Joe Meek which the programme promised, the results seem to be more gallic Oliver Reed, as the gallant Hoof maintain the music while the Frenchman grunts, yells, shrieks and looks round him in genial bewilderment. After two or three songs the dancers reappear and politely but firmly escort him back into the wings. Spike Milligan would have been proud, although you can't help but suspect this was not the organizers' intent.
After an intermission Magma take the stage to impose a little discipline on proceedings, and open with the demonic thunder of a new song, Slag Tanz. A bruising initiation it is too, recalling the noise terrorism of early Swans, with bassist Philippe Bussonnet literally punching his bass as the song unfolds in a hypnotic procession of cataclysmic crashes, the stage bled deep in crimson light.
After this breathtaking start the set meanders somewhat with the band's Philip Glass-like repetition employed on a succession of slower, lighter numbers, matters not helped by a muddy sound which obscures much of guitarist James McGaw's work. As entrancing as the slower songs frequently are, the set does begin to drag and one is left wishing for a more muscular flexing of Vander's renowned percussive talents.
The back catalogue is plundered, including a soothing Rinde, the dark, hypnotic Zombies, and the closing Kobaia which thumps in on a bass / drum combination that the Jesus Lizard would admire. After forty years of enigmatic activity, Magma clearly have much fuel left in their unique engine.
Tags: magma rob haynes crowbar music review live
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