What are we listening to right now?

[dave brum]

From their ''Best Of....'' series, Elgar on Naxos. I was listening to highlights from Tosca earlier on.

See, I do indeed know my arias from my Elgar.

[Gill the Piano]

Ever listened to Scenes From The Saga Of King Olaf by Elgar (whose dad was a piano tuner)? Some beautiful choruses in it.

[dave brum]

Nein.

I really don't know why, but Soley Soley by Middle Of The Road. Think I'll do Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep whilst I'm on that tack. Nice to see Sally Carr again, hotpants and all. Little Mix are nothing but chav imitatives (I gather they may practice naturism).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPlw44oBBH4

[dave brum]

What do we all think of this then? Do not say 'speaking in tongues, ay it?':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goUuuT6xQ0M

[Gill the Piano]

I quite like it...not sure I'd want to listen to a whole album though; how did you come across them?

I'm listening to blessed silence after having tuned my new piano (which I always resent). It had gone SO SHARP in the middle, and I had been using it to tune my guitar. Surprised my guitar didn't explode, poor thing...

[dave brum]

Lyrics can easily be twisted in any Magma track as most of their stuff is in the constructed language Kobaian. I shared a room with a couple of French bohemians whilst staying in Ireland some time ago and I got into Magma then.

Their stuff has been categorised as 'jazz-rock' or 'progressive rock'. To me, it conjures up a primitive form of acid house, the concept of taking amphetamines (speed etc.) or other recreational narcotics to enhance ones enjoyment of a particular tune.

UK Piano Page DISCLAIMER: Taking recreational narcotics is very very naughty indeed.

[Gill the Piano]

There are some bands who would be enormously improved by being heard through a haze of hallucinogenics.
UK PIANO PAGE DISCLAIMER: Speaking entirely hypothetically here, of course.

[dave brum]

The word is zeuhl as defined by Magma from the Kobaian. It means celestial. Zeuhl also categorises similar Magma inspired bands.

[dave brum]

Rachmaminov Symphony no2, which I purchased in Oxfam Marylebone in November but not gotten around to listening to until now. I want to go to that Oxfam music only store in Ealing next time I'm down there, plus I think there's a Books and Music in the Portobello Road area that attracts me like a magnet.

There's also a music only store in Edinburgh, have you ever noticed it, Feg?

[dave brum]

The second volume of J S Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues, played on a piano rather than on baroque or baroque style instrument. I don't have the first volume of them on Naxos, would like them as they are totally ensconsing. I'm planning another trip to London in February, and this time I want to 'do' Portobello Road and Notting Hill secondhand shops, who knows what musical bits and bobs I'll unearth there! Maybe the first volume.

[dave brum]

Dances from Terpsichore by Michael Praetorius, sounds very mediaeval British but is in actual fact German. Featuring the sackbutt, one of which they have at the Bate Collection in Oxford.

[Gill the Piano]

Can't beat a good sackbutt...although a serpent is well worth having.

[dave brum]

MAGMA - Hhai Live.