I agree with most of that, if not all, but 'folmaldehyde' is better than aspic in this context - the latter is culinary, the former is scientific! I'm not being disparaging here, BTW (Folk is, after all, my Mother) just aware of the inexactitudes of Folk as an academic displine; Folklore likewise. Did I read once that Percy Grainger had his doubts about modes? Or was that someone else? Can't even remember where I read it now...

Liked the Magma clip. I still have that soundtrack here somewhere.

In my youth I was a great fan of medieval films - Polanski's Macbeth, the Seventh Seal, Monty Python and the Holy Grail et al - but all we ever had of Tristan et Iseult was the tantalising shot on the back cover of the soundtrack album around which to imagine what an amazing film it just had to be. With a soundtrack like that (Vander's finest work?) how could it be anything but? Then YouTube comes along and you get the truth of it! I think they blew the budget on the helmets... then used a cut up studio demo of Wurdah Itah as the soundtrack. I had the demo session once in its glorious lo-fi totality but I can't find it right now. It has echoes in Theusz Hamtaahk - my favourite version of which was broadcast by the BBC in 1974; towards the end (after an unrelenting 30 minute onslaught) is a sublime sequence in which you can hear Vander quoting Minnie Riperton's iconic Loving You clear as day... However, the session was recorded in March 1974; Ripperton's Perfect Angel album wasn't released until the June - so, something going on there, not sure what: blame it on the Zeitgeist, especially as the following year Vander would begin toying with the disco / soul elements that came to - er - define their late 70s / 80s work.