Magma + JP Massiera + Chrome Hoof

The Barbican in space, for one night only. Just this once, this indecipherable place (they call it "brutalist") amid council housing and concrete, reachable by a footbridge suspended over the 7 o'clock traffic, isn't in London at all - it's floating somewhere beyond the atmosphere. We manage to get in thanks to a ticket and take our seats just as Chrome Hoof have already begun.

Nothing unusual: two dancers I'd call "expressionist" flanking the stage, an orchestra of around a dozen (fewer at times, more before that) musicians in apocalyptic robes, and a singer somewhere between Princess Leia and, mostly, Grace Jones.

Chrome Hoof's riffs unwind endlessly in a ritual that slides between rock excess and cosmic visions, weaving now through the notes of a harp, now through the echoes of a violin perfectly at ease between two guitars and a bass. The percussive rhythm is pure obsession, the dancers' arms move in sync tracing mechanics unknown to us, while Lola Olafisoye's voice becomes a metaphysical entity bound to her free, sweet, sensual movements.

This is the "Celestial Mass", the space ceremony staged by the extraordinary musicologist Andy Votel 40 years on from that 1969 which marks the start of the Magma saga, but also, above all, the awakening that began in Paris one day in May the year before, and man's first walk in space. It's all here tonight, and Chrome Hoof manage to be sublime in their ability to be everything at once, first turning into a heavy-metal monster before collapsing into an electronic ecstasy of sensual, violent awakening in the midst of a lysergic disco.

"Tonyte" is the core of their music, which ends only to return again and again during the performance like a mantra, out of which, toward the end, emerges JP Massiera, unwitting hero of the "anti Yè-Yè generation", failed surf guitarist and producer at the S.E.M (Studio d'Enregistrement Mediterranean) on the Côte d'Azur, from which in the early '70s came divinely eccentric singles of drugs and space-rock, including, indeed, his eccentric "Midnight Massiera". But that's history, and this is the future. Or maybe, unfortunately, just the vulgar present.

On stage, Massiera is a forlorn, grotesque figure. The improvisation that follows is something bleak, a random burst of screams and clumsy, entirely aimless sound manipulations, wisely propped up as best they can by Chrome Hoof, who try to cover up a sonic wreck that has little to do with experimentation and a lot to do with the narcotic excesses of youth.

The providential break sends us back to the foyer, among hippies, red wine, turtleneck-clad existentialists, crisps and science fiction. A guy at the bar counter has eyes open to a world all his own, telling a old friend he met a minute earlier how aliens had walked across the stage right behind Leo Smee's bass. Needless to say, he's the only one who's grasped the spirit of an evening of excess that, for many, was lived far too politely, somewhere between a snack and Star Trek.

Fortunately, we head back into the hall, the lights dim, mobile phones cease to exist since the Barbican spacecraft is fully shielded, I sit down and the soft blue lights seem to sway in from a parallel galaxy.

Magma have arrived right on time from Kobaïa, and the opening notes of "Slag Tanz" project us into the black hole of memory, between the ethereal confines of Zeuhl (or "celestial music") and the arms of the past. The sounds of the French psychonauts burn through the silence, opening the doors of sonic expression, guided by Christian Vander's percussion, three voices (two female, one male), a Fender Rhodes, bass and guitar.

Progressive, but also jazz rock, hints of standards, then progressive again. The kind that's obnoxiously pompous and, for that very reason, sublime, rigorously naive in its wildly lopsided yet strictly classical, minimal construction.

The 27 minutes of "Felicite Thosz" spread out cosmic colors and abstract conceptuality, no-wave echoes harking back to Rhys Chatham or early-period Glenn Branca-style guitar work ("The Ascension"). The journey has begun and there's no turning back; instead, it pushes forward on the sound of "E.R." and its vocal drift set to the rhythm of Vander's cymbals ("the greatest drummer in the world", according to many) and the many facets of a music that, once again, dips into jazz, borrows the expressive urgency of contemporary music and transforms it into progressive through rock.

Triumph, the end. Then it's back to Kobaïa for a finale worth experiencing. Stella Vander bids farewell: the bow, the applause, the curtain ideally falls and the Barbican returns to where it came from while staying exactly where it was. Outside, the night feels a little less frightening.

Photo by Julia Beatty

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