专辑简介

Christian Vander专辑介绍：by François CoutureWhoever is lured to Offering's recordings from the Magma connection is in for a big surprise. This 1980s band of leader Christian Vander was a whole different thing and this live recording proves it even more drastically than the studio albums. Culled from a ten-day residency at the Théâtre Déjazet in May 1987, the two-CD set presents a whopping 153 minutes of music, but they are not all convincing. Vander's interests at the time were split between Magma-derived vocal pieces and ecstatic, jazzy jams inspired by John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. The 12-piece group is comprised of two keyboardists, two bassists (electric bass and double bass), a drummer and two percussionists, and four vocalists, in addition to Vander himself. He sings lead on many tracks, front stage, sitting down at the drums only for brief moments. The album begins with a recording of Wagner's "Lohengrin" overture relayed over the PA -- a very long eight minutes to set the mood. Then the full group explodes into a rendition of Coltrane's "Olé," pushing Stella Vander to the front. This is followed by a sequence of soft pieces using smaller configurations. Of those, "Afïïèh" and the Vander duet "Les Cygnes" stand out. Singer Guy Khalifa delivers a very conservative rendition of the jazz standard "Lush Life." Disc one closes on "Joïa," a long (22 minutes), swinging tone poem featuring Christian scatting in Kobaian. Suspicions of self-indulgence are soon confirmed when disc two begins with the 47-minute "Another Day," a long, excited rambling derived from A Love Supreme with endless vocal solos and a nice but overlong piano solo spot for Simon Goubert. If that wasn't enough, "master percussionist" Pierre Marcault leads the whole group into an extended tribal jam before Christian Vander moves to his drums for a 15-minute solo. By the closing Pharoah Sanders tune, the listener is as exhausted as the musicians, but probably a lot more bored.