We stayed in touch and when the band were invited to perform at the ROSFest Prog Festival, USA in the Spring of 2005, it was a perfect opportunity to meet and see the band perform 'live'. Pheonixville was not too far from where I live in Pennsylvania and so I decided to go. I even introduced the band on stage, which was fun! While I was watching the band it reminded me of when one goes to a great movie and it seems like its over in half an hour, because it is so gripping. This is how I felt about the band. I really wasn't surprise, as the CD I had heard was impressive, but the show was a whole different kettle of fish! I was 'floored'! The music was great, the band were very tight. Great musicians and a great singer! There was a great feeling of camaraderie within the band and it emanated from the stage. This is a rare thing that I have not seen all that often.

After that show we stayed in touch and I had mentioned that I would love to do a duet with Christina some time and before I knew it Rob had written a new song called 'Night and Day'. Christina wrote the words and I found it reminiscent of the Renaissance song 'Northern Lights'. It was very comfortable for me to sing!

I recorded my vocals here in PA and with the wonder of modern technology sent it back to Wales to be finished. I was also inspired to paint a vision of Christina's words and so this became the cover art called 'Essence of Love'. Now this is represented by another piece of instrumental music written by Rob that was inspired by the painting, which is also on the single.

Hopefully one day I will get to perform the song at a concert with Magenta, until then I shall keep playing their music and will keep spreading the word!

Love and Peace
Annie Haslam

Christina:

Because people have done this comparison between our vocals, I wandered onto Annie’s website and realised that she hadn’t done any singing for a while, but had become a painter. I liked one of her paintings, bought it and we exchanged some emails. I sent her a copy of Seven and she emailed me back to say she loved it. We met up when we played Rosfest and she introduced us before we went on stage. We decided to work together if we got the chance. Later in 2005 Mike, my husband and I, went on holiday and stayed at a ranch in Wyoming. There was a beautiful mountain called Sleeping Indian (pictured) in the distance, and that night I had a very vivid dream about it. The next morning I jotted down some ideas for the lyrics, and brought it back to Rob, and we wrote Night and Day. It was quite a spiritual song, and as Annie is quite a spiritual person I thought it would suit her.

We might have done it as a duet between Annie and I of course, but we didn't because it suited her so well, basically. We decided she would do the lead vocal, and we’d release it as Annie Haslam with Magenta, with Annie as the main focal point. I hope we get to perform it live with her at some point. We have rehearsed it as a band, so we’ll certainly play it ourselves at some point, though obviously we’re concentrating on Home at the moment.