"Black Flower, the band [Nathan Daems] founded in 2014, are rooted in Ethiopian jazz, that unique fusion of funk, soul-jazz and classical Abyssinian modal music, pioneered by the likes of Mulatu Astatke, Mahmoud Ahmed and Hailu Mergia in the 1970s ... Where previous Black Flower-albums (...) sounded like a pared-back, pianoless jazz trio playing Afrocentric improvs, 'Magma' is an immersive, electronic voyage. The antique Farfisa organ that [Karel] Cuelenaere uses here sounds like some spectral voice - more than half-a-century old but serving as a portal into the future. The title track, which opens the album, is a slow-burning waltz that starts as eerie electric broadcast - like the stray bleeps and blips of an Ethiopian spaceship taking off - and mutates into a heavy thrash-metal canter in 6/8. On "The Forge", that same Farfisa organ plays drones over a motorik beat that resembles an early '70s Miles Davis wig-out ... "Deep Dive Down" is a hypnotic piece of Arabic krautrock".
