α Ω α [AKA: ALPHA OMEGA ALPHA]

3.5 stars. SATURNIA is the one man project from Portugal with Luis Simoes at the controls of this psychedelic ship he captains. He released his debut in 1999 and has offered us eight studio albums in total. The biggest gap between albums was the five year one before this was released in 2012. No wonder when you consider the quantity of music here as this is his only double album and it's worth almost 2 hours.

Also he's following up his master work "Muzak" which is almost impossible, but man in one sense he went beyond expectations. Look at the detailed front and back cover art with the symbols, pictures and words. This is the philosophy of Luis and it's incredible to look at, the detail of it all.

I picked this up cheap recently and am so impressed with the package. A thick liner note with lots of pictures of the instruments Luis plays along with his studio and we get the lyrics etc. He says hello to Nik Turner and others. There are two guests adding spoken word parts but that's it for guests. I have to mention the opener "I Am Utopia" which instrumentally is so impressive with all that's going on. The chorus is right out of THE LEGENDARY PINK DOT'S playbook.

The next track that really impressed was "Rings Of Smoke" with the mellotron and spacey sounds, this one has spoken words in it. The thing is a lot of this doesn't work for me but it's all good if you what what I mean. Lots of layering at times which I like but sometimes the vocals when they are soft or especially when they are whispered I'm just not as into it. Did I mention there's a lot of music here? A triple album back in the day, as I've said many times this would have made one killer single disc if I could pick the tracks.

There is a lot of ethnic sounds on here, especially sitar and tablas but more. The opener of disc two is a great example of this. A feel good sound here and it's called "Moving Mandala". "Trance Dance" is interesting, maybe not the lyrics but the way I feel like I'm going in circles listening to it. Nice depth to it as well. Electronics rule the day on "Specialists Of The Invisible" and it's dark and spacey too. The guitar on the next two tracks take the spotlight before mellotron takes that role on the closer. Luis also uses samples of water etc. on this album and I'm surprised at how prominent the synths are in the various ways he uses them.

This in my opinion could be the album Luis would point to as the one he is most proud of. I just have a feeling with all the detail and work he put into this. It's like his philosophy on life is on display with psychedelic music as it's soundtrack. It's too inconsistent to go 4 stars for me here but check out "Muzak" where the greatness never leaves the recording.