Tuesday, June 8, 2010

What is your Impression of the KA Rehearsals?

Now that you've heard the KA Rehearsals ... what do you think of them?

For me, one of the major differences between the 1973 version of KA and the current version of KA is the use of the organ. Magma also used the organ heavily on the 1973 Pont de Ce recording, but I think they stopped using it in mid-1973. The organ really gives the piece a fatter "bottom", and gives a bit of mysticism to the composition.

It would be interesting if Vander would rent a Hammond B3 for a series of concerts, and perform their greatest hits with it. What do you think?

7 comments:

  1. They probably dropped the Hammond on Jean-Luc Mandelier's departure
    Touring with a Hammond sure is a serious pain in the ass

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds very painful. I hope Jean-Luc Manderlier made a full recovery. ;-)

    John B

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, the track that includes the theme "Gamma" is a different take than the one ended up to the Inédits album... Though the version is indeed from the same sessions, it features Lembert on bass instead of Top and Gérard Bikialo playing an acoustic piano instead of the Fender Rhodes that he uses on these tapes. Also compared to the Inédits version Christian is pretty much just scetching his drum patterns...

    The version on Inédits was probably recorded earlier than these recordings with Top ?

    Also it is interesting than the first take of the K.A II part with Lembert is significantly more work-in-progress than the tracks 16 and 17 of K.A II with Top on bass. So the tracks 1 to 7 were likely recorded a bit earlier than the ones with Top ?

    Does anyone have speculations of the dates ?

    zankaptah

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is a wonderful gift to be able to listen to these two rehearsals. Thanks again Marc for posting this.
    I think that you can totally see that the full idea that Magma presented on K.A. on 2004 was highly developed already in 1972-1973 but you can also argue once more that Christian Vander thinks and rethinks his music.
    It's a great lesson for amateur Zeuhl musicians like me, thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think it was Stevie Winwood who said on re-discovering the Hammond he felt he found true bass, and I agree with you on the KA sessions it sounds much fuller at the bottom end.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great recording!
    IMO better than the poor official jazz version!
    it's a gem

    ReplyDelete
  7. It is indeed a good listening, very intresting to hear the development of the different elements of KA.... pretty much of it was already laid down in 73, as we now can hear :)

    Keep em coming marc !!!

    Zebehnn

    ReplyDelete