Search - Michele :: Saturn Rings

Disappointed

Photomic | 07/25/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I really didn't like this disc. With that said, I am going to do my best to be as diplomatic as possible in explaining why. I became familliar w/ Michele's singing through her work in Curt Boettcher's early band, The Ballroom. Those recordings took place between 1965 and 1966. At that time, listening to those recordings, Michele's voice was very different. Maybe she was younger or maybe it was Boettcher's many overdubs, either way, by the time this album was released in 1969 something had definitely changed. I was expecting a psych-folk offering. The instrumentation does reflect this, but Michele's singing (not necessarily her voice) doesn't. Michele did have a very nice voice, but on this album it seemed that she was trying for a more "mature" jazz sound. I had expected her singing to be folky, but instead her style came off as this strange mixture of Bette Middler and Marilyn McCoo. The opening song, "Would you like to go?" a great Ballroom / Sagittarius covered, Boettcher penned tune is a rammshackle mess here. The refrain of "Would you like to go" sounds like a satanic cult is chanting it and it doesn't blend at all with the rest of the USUALLY upbeat song. The biggest disappointment for me is her cover of Boettcher's "Spinning, Spinning, Spinning." I love the Ballroom's original version. I really don't get what everyone involved was supposed to be trying for here. Her jazzy free form method of singing this great song is really quite annoying. If you want to hear another good cover of "Spinning," try to get a copy of The Simple Images' cover of the song. They were a band from New Zealand and had a #1 hit with it (in NZ) back in 1968. Yes, they didn't bother learning all of the correct lyrics for the song, so some of the lyrics are fudged. Back to the topic at hand. I really had high expectations of this disc and am very disappointed."

Surprised me a great deal with its emotional beauty

mianfei | 03/21/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Michele O'Malley's "Saturn Rings" is a record I had been recommended for some time before I actually bought it after minimal listens on CD Universe. I was not sure of what to make of "Saturn Rings" from the descriptions that other reviewers had given it, but I am already glad I bought it even less than a week after my first listen.



One reviewer compared "Saturn Rings" to Buffy Sainte-Marie's equally commercially unsuccessful Illuminations: an accurate comparison in the sense that both records are densely orchestrated and aim to transform the sound of folk music beyond the familiar guitar-type sound. However, whereas Illuminations did this with new technology, "Saturn Rings" relies almost exclusively on orchestration to make folk music sound denser and more emotional than the classic sound of traditional folk.



The songs here are generally short and very quiet in tone, but Michele's coice is sufficient at virtually all times to make the listener severely ache. This is particularly seen on the opening track "Would You Like to Go", which despairs for a return to an innocent or golden past like very few other songs. The line "Where choruses of angelic hosts/Sing alleluia" is particularly sad and fitting. The next three tracks were written by Michelle herself and are more accessible but aching. "Fallen Angel", with some wonderfully incomprehensible mystical lyrics and tight opening groove, is the best of these especially when Michele sounds upfront near the end with dramatic glossolalia. "Spinning, Spinning, Spinning" is heavily orchestrated but quietly beautiful



The following three tracks are much longer and move from very simple quiet to dense orchestration. On Bobby Jameson's "Know Yourself", Michele really stakes her claim as a "thinking", independent woman with the tone of her voice on the quiet parts, yet oddly seems joyful on the faster choral part. It holds together well and a person of my interests (sociology, anthropology, sex roles) can see the song as almost like a woman coming to terms with her nature.



"Musty, Dusty" enhances the vocal tone of the previous track to a truly creepy acoustic beauty, whist the epic "Lament of the Astro Cowboy" is even sadder yet denser and more pasisonate. "White Linen", the fourth and last self-penned song here, must be one of the saddest songs to come out of the ecstatic 1960s, and despite its slightness it stands as catchy and beautiful in a rare combination. The two final tracks, "Misty Mirage" and "Believe You", were written by Curt Boettcher and were the purest pop pieces her without losing the virtues of beauty and sad emotion that made the rest of "Saturn Rings" so good. The singalong finale of "Misty Mirage" is quite surprising



All in all, "Saturn Rings" stand as a most surprising piece of psych-folk that has a beauty and emotional resonance rare in any genre. The cover, reminding one of Tori Amos, is as creepy and beautiful as the music, too."

Michele - Saturn Rings (US Dreamy Folkrock-Psych 1969)

Andersson, Christer | Sweden | 04/06/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Michele O'malley's Sole Album is an Unfairly Neglected West Coast Folk-psych Gem. Featuring the Involvement of Cult Legends Such as Curt Boettcher (Sagittarius, Millennium), Lowell George (Little Feat) and Elliott Ingber (Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart), It's a Dreamy Collection of Eastern-influenced West Coast Pop that Deserved to Achieve Much Greater Success on Its Original Release in 1969."