Space

Space – “Magic Fly”

(7-inch single, 1977)

A test card from a private TV channel, one of those polychrome mosaic-style patterns used to check the broadcast quality of early colour televisions. A still image held for hours, accompanied by a musical selection. With one recurring track that was terribly infectious. Impossible to forget. An alien melody built on an electronic base, with that disco-music beat hurled into outer space. That's how, in the hot summer of 1977, this writer's infatuation with “Magic Fly” was born. With no Shazam at hand, it took several weeks to discover the title of that cathode-ray spell and, naturally, to buy the 7-inch single, so as to wear it out on repeat on the turntable. But the spell lingered well beyond the bedroom of the writer, barely ten years old at the time: dancefloors across the globe fell under the same enchantment, cast by a single that seemed to come from some remote galaxy. “Magic Fly” was one of the first electronic singles to break into charts worldwide, and it kick-started an entire genre, space disco, cementing its place among the cornerstones of future synth-pop.

But who were the mysterious group behind that hit? Bluntly named Space, the pioneers of cosmic disco-music were a French outfit built around Monégasque keyboardist and composer Didier Marouani, also known under the pseudonym Ecama. A flamboyant musician who came out of the conservatory but was determined to break through in popular music. It was he who composed “Magic Fly”, at the request of astrologer Elisabetta Teissier for one of her TV programmes, which in the end would never air.

The timing was perfect: influenced by acts like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, Marouani had just bought an Arp Axxe analogue synthesizer. “It was an honour to work on that theme,” he would later recall. “As soon as I brought the Arp home and found the right sound, it took me just five minutes to write ‘Magic Fly’.”

The original version was slow, almost classical and austere, probably a perfect fit for a Seventies astrology show. But when the TV project fell through, Marouani had to reckon with the harsh laws of the music business. “The demo had no rhythm,” the Monégasque musician has recounted. “It was completely spacey: just the Arp melody and other synths. But I knew it worked.”

Marouani's enthusiasm, however, wasn't enough to convince Polydor: “We'll never release this. It's terrible”, was the label's blunt verdict. And as often happens, it was a producer who had the right idea… in this case, Jean-Philippe Iliesco De Grimaldi, known as JP. It was he who suggested adapting the track to the disco format, doubling the tempo and adding a four-on-the-floor kick drum. After some initial scepticism, Marouani agreed, also proposing to hide his own name to avoid contractual issues. That's how the idea of the group Space was born. To further mask his identity, Marouani adopted the pseudonym Ecama. Meanwhile, Iliesco secured a deal with Disques Vogue and recording began in Villetaneuse. The sessions were complicated, especially when it came to building the metronomic rhythm, entrusted to drummer Joe Hammer. “I had to play in a completely robotic way,” he has said. “It took me four whole days.” The final mix was done in just a few hours and turned out to be the best one. That's the version that was released.

And so that alien gem was born: a synthesizer instrumental that boldly set out to fuse progressive rock, space rock and electronic disco music, drawing inspiration from nothing less than Gershon Kingsley's “Popcorn” and the equally unforgettable “Daddy Cool” by Boney M. Like an “Oxygène Part IV” by Jean-Michel Jarre (released the same year) catapulted amid the strobe lights and fluorescent tiles of a Seventies dancefloor. And then there was that celestial melody, worthy of “The Model” (which would come out a year later): simple, yet astonishing, irresistible in its evocative power that carried listeners straight through the gates of the Cosmos.

With disco fever exploding worldwide thanks to the Bee Gees and “Saturday Night Fever”, the phenomenon began branching out into countless variants. From our own celebrated italodisco to the surreal (but delightful) disco samba of Chocolat's and the like. A cosmic variant of the genre — part dance, part electro-pop — space disco was blossoming in those very days, also inspired by the space-age imagery of film and TV hits like “Star Wars” and “Space: 1999”. Amid sci-fi sound effects (laser guns, spaceships, robots and the like) and glittering costumes, stars flourished such as sultry cosmic diva Dee D. Jackson (ring any bells, “Meteor Man”?) and the ultra-glittery Rockets, wrapped in their silver lamé bodysuits and armed with vocoders. Smirking behind his moustache, once again, was the holder of the title “sound of the future” (quoth Brian Eno), namely Giorgio Moroder, the first to seminally explore the concept of “space” in Seventies dance music, as confirmed by his “Theme From Battlestar Galactica” (1978), regarded as the cornerstone of sci-fi disco-music (and it was from his Munich studio that Dee D. Jackson herself emerged, too).

In this end-of-decade cosmic euphoria, Space from Marseille were no exception: hidden behind astronaut helmets, they brought together a couple of talented musicians (keyboardist Roland Romanelli and drummer Joe Hammer), a highly skilled producer (Jean-Philippe Iliesco) and a classically trained frontman-songwriter (Didier Marouani), gifted with a real knack for crafting formidable synth hooks. Like Daft Punk ante-litteram. And indeed, Daft Punk would take note. It was thanks to them that season would be revived almost twenty years later, in the new epic of French Touch. Helmets and discotheques: the watchwords once again in the spotlight, in a new season of cosmic dancing.

And donning helmets and cosmonaut suits, Space showed up in London to shoot the video for “Magic Fly”. But more than those grainy, somewhat naïve images, what really mattered was the prescient power of the track itself, with that killer hook and that enveloping synth-pop sound, ahead of its time. The single was a huge hit across Europe, breaking into the top 5 in France (No. 4), Germany (No. 1), Austria (No. 3) and Switzerland (No. 1), and even going silver in the UK, where it stalled at No. 2 only due to the death of Elvis Presley. It even managed to break through the Iron Curtain, selling 764,000 copies in the Soviet Union. In Italy it reached No. 5 on the Musica e Dischi chart and No. 17 on the Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni chart, at a time when there was no official chart and results could vary quite a bit depending on the source.

It paved the way for three equally “astral” synth-music albums under the Space name, but the group's outward success masked clashes over control between songwriter and producer, tensions over how to take the band's popularity to the next level, and years of legal battles. So, true to their destiny as a shooting star (in every sense), Space soon vanished from view.

But in the hearts of fans of this sound, “Magic Fly” will remain lodged like a sword in stone, still seducing new generations of electropop devotees. It would become a staple in Rusty Egan's sets at the legendary Blitz club in London, and would be sampled by artists of every stripe, from MF DOOM to Talib Kweli, from De La Soul to Minimalistix. Over the years, Space would even become famous in the Soviet Union and later Russia. During the Cold War, in fact, the French band's sound was used in various Soviet radio and TV programmes, where the imagery tied to space exploration found a particular resonance with Russian audiences.

If Space were a shooting star, then, their “Magic Fly” will remain immortal. And as a form of moral compensation for such unjust obscurity, its author will even have an asteroid named after him, 275215 Didiermarouani. Because, after all, that's most likely where “Magic Fly” came from in the first place.

(Thanks to Electronic Sound for the valuable information and interviews)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

05/05/2026