M - D e r V a m p i r V o n D ü s s e l d o r f -

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 44:33] 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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"1 >> ´M´ (German: ´M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder´ / ´M - A city looks for a murderer´) is a 1931 German drama-thriller film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre. It was written by Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou and was the director's first sound film. Now considered a classic, the film was deemed by Fritz Lang as the finest work he'd ever done.

Again Otacílio Melgaço flirts with selected movies and elects a
´M (e i s t e r s t ü c k)´ as a source of inspiration. The result is intriguing. Step by step, pulse to pulse, we´re surrounded by a terrifying atmosphere - sonically filled with a cyclic magnetism -. An unorthodox Rilkean elegy transfixing the intricacies of the human psyche. Ergo a peculiar and quite original short, constantly recurring idea associated with a particular ´person´ (Hans Beckert [*]; last name that anagrammatically looks much like ´Beckett´ - another Melgacian charade, clue, hint?); idée fixe; motto-theme; leading/guiding motif: for me, rhythmic cells that are repeated - through psychotic intervals? - from different instruments and thus timbres. {Would be too obvious if O.M. had adopted ´In the Hall of the Mountain King´ from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 [**], and if there´s a more antithetical trait in him is the obviousness.} Under enigmatic cadential leitmotif, undoubtedly is an impressive
e-x-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n-i-s-t sonic Piece!

2 >> But how, in its metaphorical exuberance, is vampiric?

(´Vampir´, in German = ´Vampire´)

In his 1931 treatise On the Nightmare, Welsh psychoanalyst Ernest Jones asserted that vampires are symbolic of several unconscious drives and defence mechanisms. Emotions such as love, guilt, and hate fuel the idea of the return of the dead to the grave. Desiring a reunion with loved ones, mourners may project the idea that the recently dead must in return yearn the same. From this arises the belief that folkloric vampires and revenants visit relatives, particularly their spouses, first.

In cases where there was unconscious guilt associated with the relationship, however, the wish for reunion may be subverted by anxiety. This may lead to repression, which Sigmund Freud had linked with the development of morbid dread. Jones surmised in this case the original wish of a (sexual) reunion may be drastically changed: desire is replaced by fear; love is replaced by sadism, and the object or loved one is replaced by an unknown entity. The sexual aspect may or may not be present. Some modern critics have proposed a simpler theory: People identify with immortal vampires because, by so doing, they overcome, or at least temporarily escape from, their fear of dying.

The innate sexuality of bloodsucking can be seen in its intrinsic connection with cannibalism and folkloric one with incubus-like behaviour. Many legends report various beings draining other fluids from victims, an unconscious association with semen being obvious. Finally Jones notes that when more normal aspects of sexuality are repressed, regressed forms may be expressed, in particular sadism; he felt that oral sadism is integral in vampiric behaviour.

From astounding spectra (both in dramaticity and in suspense), we, guided by an ingenious Otacílio, enter the mind of an outstanding character. Inter alia, a puzzling reinvention engendered by O.M.

3 >> What about Düsseldorf? In such city the Lang's plot takes place. However the Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist extrapolates. Düsseldorf is known for its academy of fine arts (Joseph Beuys, Emanuel Leutze, August Macke, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Andreas Gursky) and its pioneering influence on electronic/experimental music (Kraftwerk).

4 >> Extra!: the record sleeve. I call attention to a detail that can not go unsighted. In exceptional original 1930s movie posters, we see a hand and the letter ´M´. Although not a coat and chalk [*], is still an ´inserted mark´ - therefore demarcating who the Murderer is. Melgaço changes this perspective and creates an image of another level of impact. ´M´ looks more like blood, claret streaming from the very hand of the ´Mörder´. The power of this new icon becomes emanated from his own body and not being implemented (making use of the aforementioned chalk) by one of the possible future executioners. This brings us to another dimension: we´re no longer spectators, but catapulted towards the persecuted ´villain´. We´re, under the baton of Otacílio, inside of that human being - feeling what he felt, listening to the voices that he heard ... -; ultimately, the ruby becomes a sap establishing a scarlet umbilical cord between us and the mind (plus unconscious mind) of a character so controversial.

All wins an unsurpassed depth if we imagine the figure represented by Lorre with these words of Rainer Maria rumbling within himself: ´Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel
Ordnungen?´ (!!!) Point to Otacílio: here´s a Masterstroke!

5 >> What else to say about so many rhizomatic references?

´M´. The surname ´Melgaço´ has the letter ´M´ as initial. That´s enough." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"´The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.´ Oscar Wilde and his matchless aphorisms.

But, ladies and gentlemen, I will try to draw a parallel. The true Melgacian mystery is The Inaudible, but the true mystery of the world is what he makes audible!" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

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"M" was Lang's first sound film and Lang experimented with the new technology. It has a dense and complex soundtrack, as opposed to the more theatrical "talkies" being released at the same time. The soundtrack includes a narrator, sounds occurring off-camera, sounds motivating action, and suspenseful moments of silence before sudden noise. Lang was also able to make fewer cuts in the film's editing, since sound effects could now be used to inform the narrative;

II - [*]

Synopsis by Hal Erickson, Rovi. Fritz Lang's classic early talkie crime melodrama is set in 1931 Berlin. The police are anxious to capture an elusive child murderer [which name is Hans Beckert] (Peter Lorre), and they begin rounding up every criminal in town. The underworld leaders decide to take the heat off their activities by catching the child killer themselves. Once the killer is fingered, he is marked with the letter "M" chalked on his back. He is tracked down and captured by the combined forces of the Berlin criminal community, who put him on trial for his life in a kangaroo court. The killer pleads for mercy, whining that he can't control his homicidal instincts. The police close in and rescue the killer from the underworld so that he can stand trial again in "respectable" circumstances. Some prints of the film end with a caution to the audience to watch after their children more carefully;

III - [**]

The film was one of the first to use a leitmotif, a technique borrowed from opera, associating a tune with Lorre's character, who whistles the tune "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. Later in the film, the mere sound of the song lets the audience know that he is nearby, off-screen. This association of a musical theme with a particular character or situation is now a film staple. Peter Lorre could not whistle, however – it is actually Lang's wife and co-writer Thea von Harbou who is heard in the film;

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upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/c/c0/M_Eine_Stadt_sucht_einen_M%C3%B6rder_Logo_001.svg

...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.