L e g i ã o E s t r a n g e i r a
O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o
[duration 01:43:32] 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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"´Contradiction was something I really like when it is embraced in that kind of philosophy.´ (Jim Jarmusch)
There are at least two perspectives before this intriguing work. With such a vast discography as the Melgacian, it´s expected - from time to time - an overview of its production. Usually made by himself, probably the most appropriate person (with more carat for the mission). Contemporary classical music, avant-garde jazz, experimental art rock, ethnic dialects, interventions in the Brazilian sonic niche, and so many more vertebrae. ´Legião Estrangeira´ gathers some of the uncountable stylistic facets of kaleidoscopic composer and multi-instrumentalist. This, only this, would be enough.
But not. The purpose of the album here focused is equally impetuous in another aspect.
A D V I C E (for first-timers) - I must emphasize that, for many people, there may be a certain strangeness - in principle, an auricular vertigo. It´s easy to explain. For the overwhelming majority, will be the first time that, artistically, they have a special sensory stimulus like this! We live an entire existence accustomed to receiving the stimuli to be indiscriminately captured by our ears, eyes, nostrils ... Try to imagine how it would inspire a specific scent for each nostril synchronously. Come across a completely different image to each eye concurrently; how will you guide yourself? How your brain reacts? Because we´re not dealing only an aesthetic issue and keeping our senses in a comfort zone. They are, by means of
´Legião Estrangeira´, questioned reinvented frictionated uninterruptedly. Therefore, I suggest, if the introductory hearings are very exigent, instead of instinctively give up (we´re face to face with a rite of passage): assimilate little by little until this unprecedented ´sensational dimension´ becomes more adhered, affectionated and so you´ll be able to enjoy, with desirable aplomb, a new level of absorption.
Resuming the thread: for nearly two hours, in every track: two different sound Pieces divided into each stereo channel. Displayed above, with temperance, the inviting advertence: in this case, before expanding your understanding: the best thing to do is allow yourself to experience; is go straight to empiricism. If you please: fasten your seat belts (or better, you should get rid of them!), put headphones, keep an open mind and absorb the entire disc contents. As I had already warned: you´ll hear ´one music´ through the left ear and ´another´ through the right - at the same time.
I repeat: s-i-m-u-l-t-a-n-e-o-u-s-l-y.
[> Mr. Campbell made some other considerations regarding such peculiar conceptional and technical daring, here:
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/m-is-for-music-mozart-mystery-melga-o-mankind-piece-for-strings-choral-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-29-00 <]
The art of interpenetrating thesis and antithesis to generate a synthesis, this is one of the great surprises dewing in the ten tracks. Or twenty, if you, on another occasion, listen to one lateral source at a time. The line that separates 1) a merely pyrotechnic and even unbearable (aurally) result from 2) a challenging and amazing breeding (in full compliance with the innovative expansion & iconoclasm of contemporary music) is exactly 3) the ability to find a middle ground, combining freedom and equilibrium. That's what brings us Otacílio Melgaço, ladies and gentlemen.
There are other historical examples that embraced the same intrepid prism. But reaching this extreme limit, they´re rare. An invaluable instance to be mentioned is ´Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation´, the sixth album by jazz saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, released on Atlantic Records in 1961. The album features a double quartet. Left channel: Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone; Don Cherry – pocket trumpet; Scott LaFaro – bass; Billy Higgins – drums. Right channel: Eric Dolphy – bass clarinet; Freddie Hubbard – trumpet; Charlie Haden – bass; Ed Blackwell – drums.
Yes, there are other historical examples that embraced the same intrepid prism. Or almost. Note that even in the case above, happens a collective improvisation from different combos (from different trenches), however i-n-i-t-i-a-l-l-y there´s the unifying sense of composition. Both foci were meant to be intertwined already beforehand. All there ... is willfully ´Colemanly´ coherent. So this way were designed by Ornette. And this is confirmed in the act of hearing.
What Mr. Melgaço does is quite diverse compared to that. Because we should do to ourselves the inescapable query: and when the search for ´coherence´ occurs (aesthetically, while being advanced, be also worthy of fruition) from starting points that did not exist with this intention? Otacílio chose to independent creations of one another; sound Pieces belonging to distinct discs, distinct contexts, distinct logistics, etc. Those same Pieces (say, now pieces of a puzzle) were not made intentionally to fit. Consequently, the mission proposed by the artist himself has become much more difficult and dangerous. And, returning to the historical background, even rarer. This brings ´Legião Estrangeira´ to a more striking and admirable projection. Because it was almost a 神風, a kamikaze release that seal its goal while contradictorily leaves the pilot (each listener): uninjured. Or rather, fully transformed after such a crucial adventure but alive, alive as never before.
Hence an ingenious paradox engendered by O.M.: a compilation of existing compositions but spawning in unprecedented material! That's what dialectically brings us Otacílio Melgaço, ladies and gentlemen.
And now, after the fire proof, I again A D V I S E you but to live a subsequent saga: listen to the same tracks however, this time, on a sound system (on the stereo) that acoustically fills all the enclosure (so not with headphones). Thereby, will be revealed clearly another point ´of view´ - in fact, also ´of hearing´ - (ie here the philosophy behind and the concoction itself both are definitely embraced). Inasmuch as the notion of how O.M. managed the oneness (an infatuationing organicity starting from two segments - two per composition - that did not have this purposeful link each other): it´s rapturously surprising (considering artistically a tip perspective) and, henceforward, explicitly effective, consecrated. 天皇陛下万歳!
Tenno Heika Banzai!" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)
"´Legião Estrangeira´, in Portuguese. ´Foreign Legion´, in English.
Is a title which has been used by a small number of military units composed of foreign volunteers. It usually refers to the French Foreign Legion, part of the French Army, established in 1831.
Foreign volunteers. The armed forces of many nations have, at one time or another, used foreign volunteers who are motivated by political, ideological or other considerations to join a foreign army. These may be formed into units of a given nationality or may be formed into mixed nationality foreign units. Sometimes foreign volunteers were or are incorporated into ordinary units. The practice has a long history, dating back at least as far as the Roman Empire, which recruited non-citizens into Auxiliary units on the promise of them receiving Roman citizenship for themselves and their descendents at the end of their service.
The Melgacian Foreign Legion is a collectanea. A garland, selection. More than that, it´s a lore, a legacy. Considering all its denotative and connotative power as (also a) title ... to a ´sonorous anthology´, it´s really [what more could be said? beyond of] triumphant." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)
Post Scriptum - The cover image is one of the most beautiful visual metaphors relating to issues that involve this offspring, both the concept and the odd technicality - through which we are felinely, leoninely ´visited´.
´In futurity
I prophesy
That the earth from sleep
(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise, and seek
For her Maker meek;
And the desert wild
Become a garden mild.
In the southern clime,
Where the summer's prime
Never fades away,
Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told.
She had wandered long,
Hearing wild birds' song.
'Sweet sleep, come to me,
Underneath this tree;
Do father, mother, weep?
Where can Lyca sleep?
'Lost in desert wild
Is your little child.
How can Lyca sleep
If her mother weep?
'If her heart does ache,
Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.
'Frowning, frowning night,
O'er this desert bright
Let thy moon arise,
While I close my eyes.'
Sleeping Lyca lay,
While the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
Viewed the maid asleep.
The kingly lion stood,
And the virgin viewed:
Then he gambolled round
O'er the hallowed ground.
Leopards, tigers, play
Round her as she lay;
While the lion old
Bowed his mane of gold,
And her bosom lick,
And upon her neck,
From his eyes of flame,
Ruby tears there came;
While the lioness
Loosed her slender dress,
And naked they conveyed
To caves the sleeping maid.´
(William Blake; ´The Little Girl Lost´,
From ´Songs of Experience´)
&
I - Three main reasons for volunteering can be identified:
i) Ideology - the volunteer believes in a cause and volunteers to fight for it;
ii) Adventure - the volunteer joins a foreign army to see action;
iii) Long-term personal or family benefit - the volunteer serves in order to qualify for non-financial benefits, such as forgiveness of sins, citizenship or to acquire an education.
This is a simplistic analysis and, in many cases, a volunteer will be influenced by two or more of these reasons. It follows, therefore, that a unit of foreign volunteers may contain soldiers with different, or different combinations of, motivations;
II - ´A Legião Estrangeira´ is a collection of short stories of Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector - acclaimed internationally for her literary innovations -, published in September 1964.
...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.
