Anticpating "Love's Tapestry"

I caught up with Maggielurva of the Desirable Audio fame yesterday. The man seems to have disappeared from the radar for a while now. What's he up to exactly? Maggie told me that he is taking a sabbatical from Hi-Fi and is now producing a couple of long-overdue audiophile albums.

Maggie invited me to the first practice session for the "Love's Tapestry" album featuring Roger Wang on guitar (Maggie seems to love his guitar!) and Philipino singer Gina Panizales on vocals. Maggie's house seemed to have changed a lot since the last time I visited; it is more spacious now and more classy too. But his main Hi-Fi system remains the same, taking centre spot in the living hall.

I asked Maggie what inspired him to do this album of English classic love songs. He revealed that it is a recent romance that left an indelible mark in his life and the girl involved is someone who loves 70s & 80s pop music just like Maggielurva. So the album is actually inspired by and dedicated to this girl. Wow, how romantic for an audiophile! Maggie is very ambitious with this project as this is his own label's, Pop Pop music, first audiophile album. To make it even more delicious for audiophile music lovers, he and his partner have invested substantially in the studio by the name of Tutti Studio. Apart from the state-of-the-art Neve console board that cost a whopping Rm200K, Maggie has wired the key links thoroughly with Stage III Concepts cables, his all-time-favourite cables. Readers of Desirable Audio would know how crazy Maggie is with Stage III cables. In his mind, nothing beats Stage III cables in the areas of high frequencies and transparency.

When I reached Maggie's house, Roger and Gina has already started. Roger is playing with his spanking new Harp Guitar (which is built by a luthier in Kepong!), an odd shaped guitar that has extra 6 bass strings! Roger explained that he needs more bottom/lows in his music hence the birth of the idea to build a Harp Guitar. Gina Panizales may be a foreign name to many of you but I can tell you how great her voice is. She has a great tone and a very seductive bassy voice. I have never doubted Maggie's talent scouting abilities. Any singer who can pass his test must be of a certain calibre. The duo did a couple of songs which are familiar to me - "Still" by the Commodores, "Persistent Rain" by Aiza Seguerra. All I could say is this duo is even better than 2V1G! Roger is English educated and certainly adept in Western pop music and Gina seems so at ease with this kind of classic love songs. I was greatly entertained by them!


Maggie told me that recording should start end of next month. Some of the songs will be just a guitar and voice and some will be with a trio. I really can't wait for its release! Maggie said it would be ready for Valentine's Day next year. Gee, this die-hard romantic :-)

I would be covering more on the progress of "Love's Tapestry" here. One thing for sure, this will be the most-anticipated local audiophile album in 2010!