condition (records/cover): EX / EX- (1/2" top seam split)

The 1985 German double-LP reissue (on Jaro Medien out of Bremen) of Magma's landmark live document Live/Hhaï, originally released 12 December 1975 on the French label Utopia as the band's first official live record. Recorded at the Taverne de l'Olympia in Paris across five nights between 1 and 5 June 1975 with Giorgio Gomelsky producing, the album captured Christian Vander's ensemble at the peak of the Köhntarkösz era: a Kobaïan-singing zeuhl machine playing the most muscular European progressive music of the decade.

The line-up centred on Vander (drums, voice), Klaus Blasquiz (lead vocals), Stella Vander (vocals), the twenty-year-old Didier Lockwood (electric violin), Bernard Paganotti (bass), Gabriel Federow (guitar) and a multi-player keyboard section. Across four sides they perform the complete Köhntarkösz suite, the long "Mëkanïk Zaïn" / "Hhaï" piece and the Theusz Hamtaahk fragment "Köhntark", building each piece up over twelve to twenty minutes of relentless cyclical rhythm. The Lockwood violin against the Federow guitar is the front line; Paganotti's bass is the seismic engine; Vander's drumming sits at the centre of the storm. A captured-band document of considerable substance in European rock.

The pressing on offer is the 1985 Jaro Medien German double-LP reissue, JARO 4122/23, in a gatefold sleeve. Not the 1975 Utopia first issue, but the version most widely available across European markets through the mid-1980s and the standard reference pressing for European collectors who did not encounter the original French edition.