iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Not sure how @luketurner.bsky.social and @jahduran.bsky.social will feel about EasyJet keeping the ploughman’s dream alive but with crackers not bread

EasyJet inflight magazine offering a Ploughman’s snack box. Bland-looking photo with appetising description (“Rich, creamy cheeses, sharp pickles and the crispiest of crackers. Just call us cheesyJet”)

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Well this looks fascinating www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

I've been in touch with Bernard Szajner (Zed), who has confirmed that this beautiful poster was designed by Moebius (yes, THE Moebius) for Bernard's company Laser Graphics in 1977, around the time they were doing light shows at the Planetarium at the Palais De La Découverte in Paris.

colour-drenched comic-style drawing of Laser Graphics operatives dressed as space travellers at a console desk. They are in a planetarium, with laser beams in the background.

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Thank you. I had to hunt Ambient Owl Core briefly on Tidal, though, where you divide into three Kayla Painters

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

What have I counted as early Zeuhl, from the groups immediately influenced by Magma at their 1973-75 peak? I’m including Potemkine and Xalph, their style more avant and choral than Univeria Zekt, Zao and Speed Limit, for whom the ‘fusion’ descriptor seems sufficient. It’s a mug’s game though :-)

Cover of Potemkine's first album, showing and silhouette of a ship

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Another album bubbling under my Zeuhl Top Ten is Stoyz Vi Dozeveloy by Honeyelk (1979). Two side-long suites, side 2 in particular a wide range of textures, tempos and near-silences youtu.be/aHHJT1STzdU From Toulon in the South of France.

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Links: 25 radio shows bit.ly/FRSradio Manifesto in tQ tquiet.us/CSFR On magma for Shindig! bit.ly/MagmaShindig Richard Pinhas Bakers Dozen tquiet.us/RP13 Zeuhl top ten: bit.ly/ZeuhlTop10 Later, Concrete Science Fiction Riot, forthcoming on @strangeattractor.bsky.social

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

They’d planned to keep the band going alongside Magma, but it didn’t work out. The closest Weidorje had to a second album is Bernard Paganotti’s kind-of solo effort Paga (1985), which has some tracks from Weidorje’s live set and second album demos.

Cover of Paga, a sketch of Paganotti and other elements

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

The SF sleeve was the work of the group's Basque vocalist Klaus Blasquiz, who also made and taught comic art. His drawing had also graced the cover of Magma's Üdü Ẁüdü

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Quatre Visions was initially a short-run cassette put out by American fanzine and label Eurock, their second release but recorded before first album Ardeur.

photo of the cassette and box, from Discogs

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Köhntarkösz was Magma’s most recent album when Alejandro Jodorowsky was planning his big budget adaptation of Dune in the mid 1970s. You can hear why he wanted Magma to soundtrack the House of Harkonnen (while Pink Floyd would soundtrack Atreides).

Cover of book of storyboards for Jodorowsky's never-made Dune adaptation

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Attahk is less coherent than the group's great works, but it succeeds on its own terms. Blasquiz, though, saw Attahk as a bits-and-pieces album, "not really Magma any more", but he stuck with the project for another year, to complete a decade with the group.

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

From 1977 Richard Pinhas was making solo recordings when not working on Heldon tracks. The first solo album recorded (though second released) was Chronolyse, including 7 hypnotic tracks 'On the Theme of Bene Gesserit', after the matriarchal order from Dune. Listen: youtu.be/y2wKg5cWlBA

front cover of Chronolyse featuring various black and white images

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Pascal Comelade is still going strong and back in the 1970s was making brilliant underground sounds. Listen to this track from his first album (Fluence by Fluence). Richard Pinhas guested on guitar on one track. Feel the repetition & hear the US minimalist influences. youtu.be/aoRDQ5yNroM

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Frenchrocksampler links: 25 Resonance FM shows bit.ly/FRSradio Manifesto in @thequietus.com tquiet.us/CSFR Magma article for Shindig! bit.ly/MagmaShindig Richard Pinhas Bakers Dozen tquiet.us/RP13 I've been writing Concrete Science Fiction Riot, forthcoming on @strangeattractor.bsky.social

screengrab of extract from Shindig! feature on Magma with band pictures, text and a comic strip

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

One of the things that's hard for people to get their head around when they start getting into Magma is the Theusz Hamtaahk trilogy, of which there's no definitive studio recording of part 1. This is the reference version though: live in Paris 1980, from the RetrospektÏw album t.co/yakns6TC0O

Magma floating in space, from the back cover of the album

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Glad to see this article is still up, on a great exhibition of posters from May '68, when students and workers almost overthrew the French state. [Narrator's voice: or did they?] fadmagazine.com/2018/04/23/2... I love the style and the straightforward messaging

May 1968 poster, a representation of a fist atop a factory, with the text "la lutte continue" ("the struggle continues")

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Warren Hatter @frenchrocksampler.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Best cover art of 2024? I can't decide between 'May' by Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew (artwork by themselves) ... and 'Howl' by Daisy Rickman (artwork by Amelia Pemberton)

Cover art of 'May', abstractions of hands, a flower and an eye, plus the title

Cover art of 'Howl', hand-drawn symmetrical geometric shapes including a sun, plus the artist name and title

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