Saturnia
How to create infinity
NASA despairs to put human beings on Mars, Europe tries - numb - to follow the space exploration and even Portugal already has, for some years now, a satellite in orbit.Only one? we have doubts, now that we come across Saturnia
Not being exactly a satellite, Saturnia, project that gathers Luis Simões with Cool Hipnoise`s Francisco rebelo - so far exceeds all efforts developed this far, without using any shutle, they take us gliding over Saturns rings.From a timeless space where Syd Barrett dances in raves - with Gong as stars of the chill-out zone and, trippy, Hawkwind travels through the venue and where the aura of H.P. Lovecraft, himself, evokes landscapes of fantastic worlds in vibrations, Saturnia brought "The Glitter Odd", debut album that starting in the ufo club and finishing in a synthesizer in goa - inflates new life in late 60`s generated,unavoidable, psychedelia.
First the sound of a needle on vinyl is heard, then the overwhelming keyboard that serves the sound tapestry, while theremin vibrates fantasmagoria.Tablas, the danceable rhythm - contained but eficient - and a whispered voice that invokes expanding solstices. "Chrysalis", is the song and thus "The Glitter Odd" is initiated. "psychedelic and progressive Melodies meet contemporary rhythms
This was Luis Simões`s description of saturnia at the time of their first recording(dated 1999), and there is no doubt that it is well applied to the music that he creates. Declaring himself "follower of the psychedelic tradition", but considering essential to keep contact with what goes on around him, "as much in terms of musical evolution and also technological", he started by carrying through "a sort of fusion between 60`s and 70`s "head-music"; psychedelia that would later flow into progressive rock and what came out of it, already in the 90`s, the rave culture". If these were, vaguely, the initial intentions - clear, he recognizes, in the first recording where the ideia of making a symbiosis of the two universes stood out "and wasn`t allways utterly achieved", in "The Glitter Odd" concept dilutes on the arrival to a point where languages typical of the dance universe yield to a true unit. Organic and electronic melt in a whole that gives present-day color to the dream escape of people such as Pink Floyd, Pulsar, Tangerine Dream or Hawkwind "all in super-defined phases", he states.After all,facing the ideologist of the project, we can imagine saturnia turning a concert into a rave, but not playing a concert in a rave.Agreeing, he says that what truly interested him in the trance culture , "more than the music itself, was the inherent concept of evasion, meditation, escapism. What i am starting from ", he continues, "is the general concept of" head-music", more than a style A, X or Y; in what refers to that, i censor myself to the maximum, i try to be almost fundamentalist. Naturally, if influences exist, they`ll reflect in the final product, but, i prefer that they appear in an almost subliminal way".
This is precisely what happened in the "The Glitter Odd" -"of which i`m a little proud, wich is rare ", says the perfectionist Simões - where "Saturnia reached what can be considered, at least, the beguining of its sound .The dosage of all our influences and ideias in the final product pleases me immensely".Taking into account that "The Glitter Odd" is marked, in what refers to recordings, by the arrival as keyboardist, of Francisco Rebelo (bassist of Cool Hipnoise), one wonders how much this new cooperation influenced the evolution materialized on Record."Although it was his own choice not to contribute with ideias in the writing, wich is a pitty"he stresses,"Francisco had influence because he was the first saturnia keyboardist (previously Eduardo Vasconcelos and Vasco Pereira had passed through the duo) with who creation hapened.I had many improvisational moments in a more "transcending"way.It made me very well personally and musically, he is an enormous musician with a great musical culture. He also has varied influences some of them quite politically incorrect like mine ". The political incorrecteness mentioned here aplies,of course, to progressive rock and the eyes in the stars psychedelia that preceded it.
To Luis simões "this music gained the stigma of pretensiousness, of neo-classic or neo-sinphonic maybe because today thinking things in a total way and not beeing afraid of doing it big if you feel like it, is not positively regarded.Maybe the correct thing is to be tiny and to fit in formulas. In the 60`s and 70`s, and also in 80`s although less, music was not so controlled by corporations, things really happened in the underground and later, of course, some jumped to a larger exposure. Nowadays everything is much more controlled not only in terms of careers but also in terms of recordings, the way music gets to people.You have a great example of this in rock. Things are completely pre-shaped, you have lots of things with great sound, great looks and great atitude but when you crack the nut shell you dont even find it rotten, you find it empty.This is incredible and it does not happen only with rock ,it is everywhere.That was, actually, one of the factors that binded my influences with the dance scene wich was something that was coming out of the underground ". Coming back to Saturnia`s music "the conversation focuses on two points directly or not conected to it. We speak of the fantastic literature of H.P. Lovecraft and of the recurring thing of the lisergic 60`s- the duo`s main influence -"take drugs to make music to take drugs to". In what reffers to the first the identification is imediate: "I am definitively a fan, H.P. Lovecraft is probably, forgive the redundancy, the most fantastic, fantastic and bizarre author.His fiction appears in saturnia on more dissonant improvisational moments.Still, other authors with a pure science fiction aproach such as Isaac Asimov appear in a more evident way, not in the form of thematic or literal linkings but in musical terms. What I try to draw from artistic objects are the ideias, the energy they awake in me. These are the experiences that I keep for saturnia ".Following the reasoning it becomes evident that just like the music also the lyrical components of saturnia are above all sumoners of images. As the author of the "sumonings"explains "more than trying to express feelings or sequences with some type of logical or chronological understanding, I always prefered to suggest images or these same feelings, thus giving space for the listener to make his associations".And what about "take drugs to make music to take drugs to"? Does it aplies to Saturnia? Considering that, "considering the sonic, conceptual, spiritual, energetic characteristics of the music, a connection with the" drug-culture "exists", Luis Simões prefers to say that "that is not a " sine qua non "condition for a better insertion in our universe.What essentialy matters is to have the ability to destroy some defenses, to open a few doors and to enter some windows. That is basically what drugs do... but if you have nothing to give, nothing to extract from them, it will be just a temporary sensation.Fifteen minutes and it`s over", he concludes.
To make your own conclusions with or without acid and/or aromatical company - a little peek into Palco 6 in Park of the Nations, 28, next friday, when Saturnia share the stage with Hipnotica is adviseable. Later on if you liked the trip, go to New zealander Cranium Records site(it is theirs the release of "The Glitter Odd") and order the record. When at home drifting, try to look through the window. Momentarily, stars and constellations will make all the sense in the world.
Blitz 25/09/2001 Mário Lopes
