Magma Eliphas Levi/ Comus Children of the Universe

These two tracks come from lowly rated and much maligned albums from each band, but I happen to enjoy both albums. Which do you prefer?





I've actually often thought that To Keep From Crying might appeal to some folkies who hate First Utterance, and Merci might appeal in part to some disco funksters who generally hate Magma, but I have chosen tracks that I think fans of these bands would enjoy.

{Late edit to fix embeds as I did a sister poll to it}

Edited by Logan - August 09 2018 at 18:14

Magma, but just because you chose that track. Not many things I like in Mercy ...oh I mean Merci.  Come on Chris, what was your intention ? 

ALotOfBottle wrote: Hard, I happen to like both of these tracks. They have a meditative feel to them that I really appreciate. I think Magma wins just by a hair, it has that nice vibe that reminds me of the space-age music from the fifties.

I like "Eliphas Levi" a lot, but thinking of the children, I've given "Children of the Universe" a vote -- I wanted to keep them from crying what with the zero votes.

Incidentally, does anyone out there who dislikes First Utterance like To Keep From Crying? I've recommended it to people before who find F.U. gross, disturbing and tasteless for another taste of Comus, but I've actually yet to find anyone who disliked F.U. who has commented favourably on the recommendation. Even tried to get one person, who thought Kobaian stupid, into Magma via Call From the Dark (Ooh ooh Baby), and maybe not surprisingly that did not go well.

Edited by Logan - July 19 2016 at 18:21

Eliphas for me ... an uncluttered, comforting and serenely levitating masterpiece that I associate with strangely tweaked childlike dreams - the kind of which mostly spring to mind while listening to Frith or The Residents' Not Available.
To me, amusingly, quasi each time Magma gets on the ethereal opera road they tend to sound like an altered 50s Broadway broadcast from Planet Kobaia (see Merci's finale The Night We Died, several parts of Félicité Thösz, and even the calmly evocative parts of Šlag Tanz !)



Edited by God Was A Mellotron - July 21 2016 at 05:45

Bumping this as an accessory to the recent "To Keep From Crying" or "The Night We Died". This got twelve votes in it's original run, and I fear, or would do if danger weren't my middle name, that the newer poll will get considerably less (doesn't help failing to embed both tracks).

Eliphas Levi fantastic while Children of the Universe nice enough. But to my ears Bobbie Watson's lovely voice can't save this rather generic 70's folk rock-styled, uninventive song. As I often with this kind of songs/bands I wish their instrumentation or arrangement was... well more like on Comus' own debut.