Magma is a French progressive rock band founded in Paris in 1969 by self-taught drummer Christian Vander, who claimed as his inspiration a "vision of humanity's spiritual and ecological future" that profoundly disturbed him.

Over the years, Seventh has also released albums by related artists such as Stella Vander, Patrick Gauthier, and Collectif Mu.

Vocalist Lucien Zabuski was replaced with Klaus Blasquiz, and pianist Eddie Rabin, double bassist Jacky Vidal, and guitarist Claude Engel also joined the group.

Many musicians left the band that year, including François Cahen, Louis Toesca, Jeff Seffer, Francis Moze, and Teddy Lasry.

This new version of the band would release their most famous work Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh, which would later become their most acclaimed album, and gave them international fame,[7] including a spot at the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival, their first American performance.

In 1974, under Vander's name, the band released a soundtrack album accompanying Yvan Lagrange's 1972 film Tristan et Iseult, also known as Ẁurdah Ïtah; under Magma's name, they followed up with Köhntarkösz, which was successful among fans, but not received as well among the public as Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh.

[8] In 1976, Top briefly rejoined the band for the recording of the album Üdü Ẁüdü, but left soon after due to strained relations with frontman Christian Vander.

Celebrating 10 years as a band, in 1980, Magma performed three nights at L'Olympia in Paris, with guest appearances from many of the group's past musicians.

[17][18][19] It is the language of Kobaïa, a fictional planet invented by Vander and the setting for a musical "space opera" sung in Kobaïan by Magma on fifteen concept albums.

[22] British music critic Ian MacDonald said that Kobaïan is "phonetic, not semantic", and that it is based on "sonorities, not on applied meanings".

While the original intent of the language was to avoid over-scrutiny, unofficial Kobaïan online lexicons were created by Magma fans, and Vander himself has since translated many of the words.

[28][29] Several Japanese Zeuhl bands also sprang up, including Ruins and Kōenji Hyakkei, whose lyrics are also sung in a constructed language similar to Kobaïan.

[30] Dominique Leone, writing for Pitchfork, says the style is "about what you'd expect an alien rock opera to sound like: massed, chanted choral motifs, martial, repetitive percussion, sudden bursts of explosive improv and just as unexpected lapses into eerie, minimalist trance-rock.

[38] The Chicago Reader wrote that Magma's music "could arguably be labeled modern classical, progressive rock, free jazz, or even psychedelia, but it’s too big for any of those boxes".

[40] The mythology of Kobaïa seems to be strongly influenced by the esoteric The Urantia Book, a kind of pseudo-bible that combines religious elements of various origins with scientific findings and science fiction.

Furthermore, the motifs surrounding the myth of Kobaïa, particularly in the first three albums, have similarities with Johannes Kepler's novel Somnium from 1634, Francis Godwin's novel The Man in the Moone from 1638 and Cyrano de Bergerac's The Other World (Orig.

With the album Theusz Hamthaak, the motifs increasingly approach modern science fiction literature of the 20th century such as H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, Olaf Stapledon's The Last and the First Men and The Star Maker of 1930 or Arthur C. Clark's The Last Generation from 1953.

The Kobaïan term Zeuhl has come to refer to the musical style of these bands and the French jazz fusion/symphonic rock scene that grew around them.

[2] Besides Christian Vander, other well-known Magma alumni include the violinist Didier Lockwood, bassist-composer Jannick "Janik" Top,[47] and spinoff act Weidorje.

Punk rock singer Johnny Rotten,[49] metal musician Kristoffer Rygg,[50] Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree,[51] Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth,[52] Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden,[53] Cattle Decapitation vocalist Travis Ryan,[54] magician Penn Jillette, and Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky have all stated their admiration of the band.

In the 1980s, British World champion snooker player Steve Davis declared himself a passionate follower of the band since his youth and used some of his winnings to promote a series of concerts by Magma in London.