Saturnalia
Magical Love

The Saturnalia (or Brumalia) is a pagan rite that during the winter solstice recalls the mythical Golden Age, when all men were free to enjoy themselves like the Gods.

For English rock, the golden age can be pinpointed around the magical year 1970, when in the land of Albion, bands would form and dissolve within the span of a single album, such was the frenzy of musicians to change line-ups and experiment with new contaminations that grouped blues, psychedelia, hard rock, and even the germ of progressive. Thus, from the ancestral tree Crazy World of Arthur Brown, the sap spread through a myriad of branches with Atomic Rooster, Andromeda, Tucky Buzzard, Black Cat Bones, Quatermass, Fuzzy Duck, Hard Stuff, Horse, Leaf Hound, and countless other now-forgotten bands that today live only in the dreams of collectors.

The Saturnalia was one of these, related to the more hard psychedelic Horse through guitarist Rod Roach and singer Adrian Hawkins. A completely underground band, perhaps among the last that can truly be called underground, which had its strong point in a beautiful girl of Austrian origin: Aletta, a dancer and model who even ended up on the pages of Vogue!

Her passion for astrology and the fine arts manifested in 1969 through a magnificent vinyl without a cover. "Magical Love" is indeed a picture disc (the first in history!) decorated with magical-astral symbols and with 3D labels that animate when the record spins on the turntable, accompanied by a rich photographic booklet full of astrological information and even a ticket to attend one of their concerts at the Rainbow!

Produced by former Yardbird Keith Relf, their music is a psychedelic journey and a little progressive that strongly recalls Jefferson Airplane for the use of Aletta and Hawkins' voices, while Rod Roach's guitars support the esoteric rides tinged with hard blues tremors like in the dreamy "Princess and the Peasant Boy" or in the long psycho-jazz excursus of "Winchester Town", supported by perfect rhythm.

"She Brings Peace" is a kind of acid rain that Hawkins' voice spreads like a Jeffersonian ballad while Roach's lysergic solo makes it clear how important it is for this type of music to have a Gibson guitar in the band instead of keyboards: the sharp nails of the six strings can penetrate deeply into the acidic structure of the song-body. In the short "Soul Song", Aletta demonstrates how close she is to certain things of Grace Slick, and the screams with which she closes the track make her a precursor to other vocal acrobats like Diamanda Galas or Mama Bea Tekielski. And yet, in the folk-like "And I Have Loved You", her voice resembles much that of Celia Humpris of the delicate Trees, the song itself could very well be an outtake from that album.

Even the acoustic "Dreaming" opens with a riff of unplugged guitars similar to "Whole lotta love" by the Zeppelin before changing course, heading towards sweet choral folk.

Perhaps those of the esteemed Akarma label, who often handle the reissues of these records, promise who knows what hidden sonic marvels among the forgotten grooves of these vinyls. It's not always the case, but I assure you that the more I know the past, the more the present disgusts me.