I was gonna wait til tomorrow to get to a 600th post, but after spending yesterday and all night with this magnificent anniversary performance, I decided to just make it a three-in-a-row extravaganza for Saturday, Sunday & Monday.
This page is supposed to default to the esoteric and undercirculated, so for #600 we are going full obscurity. Tomorrow we'll cover something less out there.
What we have here is the 1980s side project of Magma mastermind Christian Vander, recorded in concert well before they made their first record in 1986.
This music, whilst related to dude's main band, is very different than Magma and has a more Spiritual Jazz/Coltrane-ish kinda vibe, with the beautiful, often wordless, vocalizations of his wife Stella Vander pushed to the fore.
I guess if you crossed Magma's Attahk albun with 'Trane's Wise One, you'd have a wisp of an idea of what this one is like.
Anyway I thought it was just too great a show not to share, somewhat dodgily recorded as it is. I worked on it all day and night to move the ball, and I think I succeeded.
Christian Vander's Offering
Salle Gymnase Louis Aragon
Romans-sur-Isère, France
9.13.1984
01 Offering
02 Earth (Névrose)
03 Le Chant du Sorcier
04 C'est pour Nous
05 Another Day
06 FM présentation
total time: 1:16:17
Christian Vander - vocals & percussion
Stella Vander - vocals & percussion
Francis Moze - bass
Jean-Pierre Fouquey - keyboards
Simon Goubert - drums
Guy Khalifa - vocals, flute & keyboards
Pierre Marcault - percussion
likely a master or 1st gen cassette of the portion of this concert broadcast on France Culture Radio in 1984
somewhat slightly repaired, retracked and remastered by EN, September 2020
433 MB FLAC/September 2020 archive link
The bass is still a bit hot at moments and the louder sections get a little bleedy, but hopefully what I spent yesterday doing to it brought it a little further out of the mud and into a more listenably sublime state.
Like I said I'll be back in 24 to finish out this triple play, but if you like the jazzier, modally oriented side of what I post, then today is definitely your day to get clicking. Enjoy!--J.
