Magma's Köhntarkösz turns 50!

[Kcrimso]

If my facts are correct, Köhntarkösz is exactly 50 years old today. And even if it isn't, I think it's Magma's best album and one of my all-time favourites. I wrote a review of the album: https://pienemmatpurot.com/review-ma...ntarkosz-1974/

[Splicer]

The version on Live/Hhai continues to be my favorite track from Magma. I could listen to it a thousand more times.

[Dana5140]

My favorite version as well, my favorite composition, and I must have listened to that version well over 300 times easy.

But there are earlier versions, even from 1972. Here is one from '73:

[Bytor]

My favorite version as well, my favorite composition, and I must have listened to that version well over 300 times easy.

But there are earlier versions, even from 1972. Here is one from '73:

I'm 10 minutes in and so far it is basically part 3 of KA. Great stuff.

[Steve F.]

Yeah
IF I have to choose a favorite (and I don’t), it’s either Kohntarkhosz or Kohntark Anteria

[Zeuhlmate]

I'm 10 minutes in and so far it is basically part 3 of KA. Great stuff.

Great, magic "new" combinations & variations of allsorts, Om Zanka, Gamma Anteria a.o., but not much Kohntarkosz before the 17 minute where Part Two is coming up.

Could have been on a Inedits II. It is not about High Fidelity.

[Zeuhlmate]

Great, magic "new" combinations & variations of allsorts, Om Zanka, Gamma Anteria a.o., but not much Kohntarkosz before the 17 minute where Part Two is coming up.

Could have been on a Inedits II. It is not about High Fidelity.

6 months later an iteration more like the version we know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS61tuHENxc

[spellbound]

(...celebrates in Kobaian...)

[Marco]

Absolute towering composition.

[Dana5140]

I believe they played it at Newport in 1973 as well (an excerpt), wait just found the clip. The Brecker Brothers and Bill Watrous are on this!

[Steve F.]

^^^^^^^

Rene Garber has the look of the true believer!

[Scrotum Scissor]

It's my fave Mag studio work along with 1001*, parts of Würdah and those allegedly not-so-live passages of "Theusz" from Retrospektïw.

My fave live version is actually the one from Theatre Du Taur.

[Hunchentootz]

My favorite album from Magma hands down.

[Dana5140]

Between Garber, Richard Raux, Jannik, Klaus and Christian, that is one scary looking group of musicians. Talk about having the stare!

[Conti]

The best Magma album IMO and one of my all time favorite albums by anyone. I really dig these early, embryonic versions of the piece (re: YouTube vids above) in which Kohntarkosz and KA are still in the making and still part of each other. The beggining of the Newport gig is evil even by Magma standards. Jeez, how evil they could be at the time!!! The BBC performance is also outstanding evil-wise, but I do still consider the studio version the definitive one.

[Dana5140]

This really bad article on Magma, which almost never actually discusses Magma and gets a lot of information wrong, just came out:

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/magma-t...-own-language/

[selfextraction]

This really bad article on Magma, which almost never actually discusses Magma and gets a lot of information wrong, just came out:

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/magma-t...-own-language/

There are 11 paragraphs in that article and the first 6 don't mention Magma.

[Dana5140]

I just could not take it. I wrote them. Here is what I said:

Far Out, I just finished reading the article about Magma that Dale Mapplethorpe wrote, and while I love anything about the band, I am distressed by how much this article gets wrong in its brief length. First, it takes 6 paragraphs to actually get to discussing the band the article is purportedly about. Along the way it completely misinterprets the history of free jazz as well as Japanese noise music. Free jazz did not grow out of sweet-sounding jazz; it was an outgrowth of hard bop, which was anything but sweet, and free jazz was certainly music that people listened to. There is a reason why John Coltrane's A Love Supreme is one of the greatest and most popular jazz records in history. Free jazz was not inaccessible; it was simply a new thing- and the same is true for Japanese bands such as Ruins or Acid Mothers Temple. It was not protest- or you have never read what Coltrane said about why he wrote A Love Supreme. Or never understood what Sun Ra- whom I met many years ago- was trying to do.

And then you get so much wrong about Magma- what record did they ever release that involved only wind instruments? I have every record the band ever released, along with more than 200 live concerts, and I do not know what you are referring to. What metal did they ever do? Slag Tanz, maybe? One song out of 50 years? Outside of Merci, what albums dabble with funk? All of Magma's records are prog, in their Zeuhl form.

I interviewed Christian Vander back in 1988, and he explained that the Kobaian lyrics were developed because he felt that the French language could not convey the depth of feeling he felt his music needed. This was part of my article that Option magazine published that year. The sounds come to him as he works out the composition. And terms become part of the lyrical world for Magma- Tendiwa is love, Zeuhl is celestial, Theusz Hamtahk is the Time of Hatred, etc.

I've been listening Magma for nearly half a century. I've met members of the band, have a picture of me at a Magma concert that was taken by singer Herve Aknin, and wrote the long article in Sea of Tranquility. You can find it at: https://www.seaoftranquility.org/sec...icle&artid=281

I hate to be so critical, but there are significant errors in this article. I hope that you can perhaps clean it up a little bit.

Dana Lawrence
Dallas, TX

[unclemeat]

It's obviously an AI ''writer''. Waste no more time with this rubbish.

[Dana5140]

I considered that. It does sound as though AI write it, but since they gave a human authorship to it, I thought to write- and the mistakes are there, no matter who wrote it, real of artificial.

[runciblemoon]

Outside of Merci, what albums dabble with funk?

I agree with all your other criticisms of what I also strongly suspect is just yet more AI slop polluting the internet, but I'd argue that Attahk certainly owes a debt to funk, as does Retrovision and probably a fair few other bits and pieces in Magma's discography. It's maybe not a primary ingredient, but I'd say funk is certainly one of the many genres bobbing about in the Zeuhl stew.

[Dana5140]

Some news: Christian just recorded a quick Instagram reel in which he thanks everyone for their best wishes, and notes that his elbow is recovering well, has a good range of motion, and he is continuing to work on it because he now has 3 shows planned for November and December. He demonstrates the good motion he has. And then with the band, they are in process of planning a 25th anniversary show at Le Triton in which over the course of 3 separated nights they will show how they work and develop and advance their music, which each night different from the last, as they work and rework things.

https://www.instagram.com/magma.officiel/p/DAi_MoRiQLK/

[unclemeat]

And then with the band, they are in process of planning a 25th anniversary show at Le Triton in which over the course of 3 separated nights they will show how they work and develop and advance their music, which each night different from the last, as they work and rework things.

More like three public rehearsals. The repertoire for the forthcoming shows, beginning in december, will not include the TH trilogy nor anything from Karthël. It will feature a new Vander composition. There are plans for a spring tour.

[Dana5140]

Even better!

[GuitarGeek]

There are 11 paragraphs in that article and the first 6 don't mention Magma.

And the second paragraph reiterates the bullshit myth about punk rock being some kind of revolutionary thing (as in "We're gonna overthrow the monarchy", no you're not, you're just making a bunch of music, possibly making a lot of money, pretending that you're gonna overthrow the monarchy), like that has anything to do with Magma.