D e l i r i u m T r e m e n s

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 50:38] all rights reserved

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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link: otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)

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"There are some interpretative angles to delirium tremens. Certainly the concept adopted by O.M. has the onirical territory as cradle. I´ll, therefore, emphasize three pillars that should be read as both tangible references and figurative trampoline:

1 - It is characterized by shaking associated with dreamlike mental activity. You can see, however, that this condition is discontinued during the brief period of deep sleep reappearing in other phases of the cycle of mental activity. Delirium is a nonspecific diagnosis in psychiatry designating a state of mental confusion: the persons may possibly not know where they are, what day it is, can not pay attention to anything, have a disorganized behavior, the speech may appear disorganized or unintelligible, the night can be busier than the day etc;

2 - A common thread in delirium tremens (but that´s not always present) are auditory hallucinations, tactile and/or visual;

3 - The nature and the content of these hallucinations vary from individual to individual. However, it is clear that relate to the experiences and the past life of the individual as well as the physical, social and cultural defining environment; shapes and expression to the concept of human subjectivity.

Now it's time to subjectively hear this conspicuous work!

It´s believed that the American writer Edgar Allan Poe died amid a delirium tremens crisis, being seen in his last hours screaming through the streets of Baltimore half-naked and his last sentence was ´Lord, please help my poor soul.´
I believe, this is what makes the Melgacian Delirium Tremens: metaphorically rescues our souls, some poorer than others. But all worthy of such stupendous artistic expression." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"´I think the purpose of a piece of music is significant when it actually lives in somebody else. A composer puts down a code, and a performer can activate the code in somebody else. Once it lives in somebody else, it can live in others as well...´ said Yo-Yo Ma.
This magnetic album coming from the Brazilian composer and multi instrumentalist Otacílio Melgaço seems a code. A little secret, a little universal. Sonically, elusive and embracing. Perhaps penetrating deep into labyrinthine sensation (monumental and so intimate, real and delusional, above the comprehension and so pervasive, striking and extremely subtle, paradoxical and ontological, devastating and welcoming, ubiquitous and private, and so on...) felt by those who create, compose, engenders. Especially recovering the magnitude that Music and Art have yet to dazzle and elevate all human complex rhizome, sensory - mental - and if you believe - Numinous." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

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I - Delirium tremens (Latin for "shaking frenzy", also referred to as DTs, "the horrors", "the bottleache", "quart mania", "ork orks", "gallon distemper", "the zoots", "barrel fever","the shakes", "the 750 itch", "pint paralysis") is an acute episode of delirium that is (not only but) usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol, first described in 1813;

II - The main symptoms of delirium tremens are global confusion, disorientation, visual and auditory hallucinations, tactile hallucinations etc;

III - Writer Jack Kerouac details his experiences with delirium tremens in his book Big Sur.

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
quotes have Wikipedia as a source...

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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.