Artist: Magma
Label: Seventh Records
Release: 1976
Rating: 4.5/5
As usual, there were big lineup changes in Magma after Wurdah Itah. Udu Wudu actually features a whole bunch of new musicians. Mostly they’re familiar faces from Magma’s orbit (people who had already played live with the band), but some are simply studio players. This time there’s no guitar at all, Stella Vander sings on just one track, and Klaus Blasquiz isn’t always around either. The only constants are Vander and Top (Top is missing only on Weidorje). The remarkable thing about this release is that most of the songs this time didn’t grow in Christian Vander’s garden, since he handed the reins to Jannick Top, the band’s bassist. Vander even joked that it’s a Jannick Top solo album, but that strikes me as a bit unfair, since Vander had written pretty much everything before this. Top is responsible for two tracks (the epic De Futura and Soleil D’Ork), Vander composed the rest, except for Weidorje, which was the work of Klaus Blasquiz and Bernard Paganotti. After this album, Paganotti went on to form a very interesting band called Weidorje (named after this song), mixing elements of zeuhl and jazz-rock.
Udu Wudu is the first album that doesn’t continue the story of the planet Kobaia. These are individual songs that mostly have nothing to do with Vander’s epic concept. Some are tied to that imaginary planet, while the rest are just plain songs with no link to the previous albums. The lyrics are still in some strange language, though it doesn’t always sound like “Kobaian,” so in that respect the tradition didn’t carry on either.
The album kicks off with a really fun jazz-rock number with a Latin flavor. It’s one of the few Magma tracks you could actually dance to. The super light, optimistic atmosphere is surprising too, especially with that trumpet sound driving it home. Weidorje sounds like it was recorded in some other studio. The sound quality and production are considerably worse, and the whole thing sounds a bit muffled. A shame, because it’s one of the best pieces on the album. It gives you a preview of how the band Weidorje would sound, except that here the composition is tighter, with less jazz-rock soloing and jamming. The structure is fairly classic, but the melodies are good enough that it doesn’t even matter. The next track is similarly dark, with a fairly simple structure and a couple of interesting melodies. The vocals here are a bit better and more operatic than on some of the earlier albums. Soleil D’Ork is a pretty typical Top composition. This repetitive and slightly boring track has a mystical, oriental tinge to it. Zombies is, along with the title track, the only “wild” number. The tempo is very fast, the mood is dark, and the vocals are interesting too (especially Blasquiz’s growling). Finally comes the epic De Futura. Many consider it Top’s masterpiece, but personally I find it pretty empty. The track lacks focus, with too much repetition and dull stretches that go nowhere. For the most part it just stays in one place, with almost no build-up. If it were a composition of ten minutes or less, it could have been really good, but as it is, it’s stretched way too thin. Top especially overdoes it with his monotonous bass passages. I quite like his style otherwise, but here he went too far. Maybe it’s just me who can’t see the masterpiece in this one, since Magma still play it live quite often to this day.
The most striking aspect of this album is the booming bass that drowns out all the other instruments. Here and on Attahk, this instrument is the most audible and prominent. At times it even sounds like a guitar. Vander occasionally hits the best drumming moments of his career, especially on the faster tracks, where his powerful, precise fills show off everything he’s got. The vocals are, sadly, merely solid. There’s nothing to fault aesthetically, but they’re not varied enough and come across as one-dimensional. There’s none of that famous multi-part harmony and choral singing we’re used to from this band. The keyboards are of lower quality than on the previous releases, mostly because of a slight overuse of synthesizers. Magma were always at their best when an electric piano (or a regular one) was used. For the most part the keyboards play a less important role, since the bass and drums quite often take the lead. That flips the typical rock setup where bass and drums are the rhythm section. With Magma, the keyboards often serve that purpose while the drums and bass take center stage. That’s real Rock in Opposition. A few times woodwinds and brass show up too, which liven up the music quite a bit and create a richer sound.
This album definitely isn’t among their best. It feels like it was made too fast, and there’s no consistency either: the songs don’t flow as a whole, and there’s no red thread like on the earlier albums. The vocals are much weaker too. They’re not as layered as on Mekanik, Wurdah Itah or even Kohntarkosz. The songs are structurally much more standard and ordinary. For some, you could even argue they belong in the pop category. There’s a lack of depth that was present in abundance on the better releases. It seems like Christian Vander didn’t know how to move forward with Magma, which is why this album and Attahk are a kind of transitional pair, where he was searching for a new sound to take the band into another era and dimension. It’s true that he succeeded to some extent in terms of sound, since the album doesn’t sound like any of its predecessors. There’s certainly no shortage of innovation, but the artistic inspiration that was so often there before is missing. Luckily, he managed to fix that on the next studio release, which showed more melodic inspiration and came together as a nice whole. Sadly, Udu Wudu suffers from a lack of good ideas and half-baked songs, though every track still has something interesting and high-quality in it, even if none is a masterpiece. I’d recommend this album more to collectors, while those pop tracks might also win over a listener who wouldn’t otherwise be drawn to Magma.
Lineup
Christian Vander – percussion, vocals, piano, keyboards, drums
Jannik Top – bass, brass arrangements, vocals, synthesizer
Klaus Blasquiz – vocals
Stella Vander – vocals
“Lisa” – vocals
Lucille Cullaz – vocals
Catherine Szpira – vocals
Pierre Dutour – trumpet
Alain Hatot – saxophone, flute
Bernard Paganotti – bass, vocals, percussion
Patrick Gauthier – keyboards
Michel Graillier – keyboards
Benoît Widemann – keyboards
Production
Magma
Track list
1. Üdü Wüdü (4:10)
2. Weidorje (4:30)
3. Troller Tanz (Ghost Dance)(3:40)
4. Soleil d’Ork (ORK’ Sun)(3:50)
5. Zombies (Ghost Dance)(4:10)
6. De Futura (18:00)
