Magma 1001° Centigrades

A must for Magma fanatics, fans and freaks everywhere. An opportunity not to be missed. For the first time ever, the full set of 9 incredible studio albums - from Kobaia to K.A - in deluxe digipack form. Each volume has its own 32 to 48 page booklets, containing photos and previously unpublished documents re-telling the story of Magma in 9 detailed chapters. Also includes a bonus double CD of archive documents: the first demo recorded by the band in 1970, the original sound track from the film 24 heures seulement recorded that same year by the line-up playing on the first album, a demo version of MDK with just rhythm section and a vocal guide track, and a version of Eliphas Levi with drums.

This archival Magma double disc album represents a concert recorded on 12th of November, 1971 in Brussels, Belgium at Theatre 140. The septet known from 1001 Centigrades (that is, with the three man horn section and minus the guitarist Claude Engel from the first album) performs a set culling material from the first two albums, plus two later Magma standards that were new at the time…

Rïah Sahïltaahk is listed by most sources as a new studio album by Magma but it is in fact simply a re-recording of the first track of the same name from their second album. Apparently, Magma’s leader, Christian Vander, was never satisfied with the original 21-minute arrangement of Rïah Sahïltaahk that appeared on 1971’s "1001 Degrees Centigrades". Thus, over 40 years later, he has set out to rectify the situation. And the result? There are plenty of familiar passages throughout this 24-minute version. However, Vander has broken up the original single-track piece into seven separately-named tracks. Also gone are the horns of the 1971 recording, notably the distinctive bass clarinet of Yochk’o Seffer. In the place of the brass and woodwinds, we get guitar, vibraphone, and female vocals. All in all, not a bad tradeoff. Also, due to modern technology, this EP has a cleaner, clearer mix than the original.

Paris-born Teddy Lasry was a member of the experimental French progressive rock band Magma. With Magma, Lasry recorded the very successful albums 'Magma', '2' (originally "1001 Centigrades") and 'Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh', which became the band's commercial breakthrough. But Teddy Lasry left the band before they went back into the studio for 'Köhntarkösz' in 1974. The multi-instrumentalist aimed for a solo career, signed a record deal with RCA in Paris and released the highly acclaimed album 'E=mc2' in 1976. In addition to bassist Jannick Top (also Magma) and drummer Andre Ceccarelli, Lasry played almost all the instruments on the atmospheric electronic album himself, in the tradition of Mike Oldfield. After more than forty years, there is finally a re-release of this French masterpiece of electronic music for the first time on CD.