メ タ ボ リ ズ ム / M e t a b o r i z u m u (Metabolism)
P i e c e s F o r V i b r a p h o n e, V o i c e s
a n d B r o k e n G l a s s

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 51:21] 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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"Some concepts may be valuable in the hearing of an After-Light as メタボリズム / Metaborizumu - Pieces for Vibraphone, Voices and Broken Glass. Thus, I can prove how Melgaço is excitingly paradoxical.

´After the bacchanal of post-modernism (Melgaço also participates in bacchanalia - keeping the metaphor), the time has again come for neo-minimalism, neo-ascetism, neo-denial ... In its general musical usage,

p o s t m i n i m a l i s m

refers to works influenced by minimal music, and it is generally categorized within the meta-genre art music. Writer Kyle Gann has employed the term more strictly to connote the style that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s and characterized by:
1.A steady pulse, usually continuing throughout a work or movement;
2.A diatonic pitch language, tonal in effect but avoiding traditional functional tonality;
3.General evenness of dynamics, without strong climaxes or nuanced emotionalism; and
4.Unlike minimalism, an avoidance of obvious or linear formal design.

Minimalist procedures such as additive and subtractive process are common in postminimalism, though usually in disguised form, and the style has also shown a capacity for absorbing influences from world and popular music (Balinese gamelan, bluegrass, Jewish cantillation, and so on).´

1.Directly there is no such feature. But, I would say, in a ´suspended sound plan´, yes;
2.Nonexistent. However I ask the question: would it be possible to enact a certain ´minimalist spirit´ even not diatonic or under the dictatorship of tonality? The absorption of this work may give us the answer. And gives us;
3.Accordingly;
4.Despite incoherent complexity, we can still find peculiar linearity.

About the capacity for absorbing influences from world and popular music, only the presence of Balinese breezes in メタボリズム already corroborates my analysis. There is melgacian heterodoxy but, at least for references of our possible interest, still flirting with concepts radicalized. Flirtations sometimes ratify stylistic languages​​; flirtations sometimes pervert. And move on. Develop, go beyond.

More.

H o l y M i n i m a l i s m.

´Holy minimalism, mystic minimalism, spiritual minimalism, or sacred minimalism are terms used to describe the musical works of a number of late-twentieth-century composers of Western classical music. The compositions are distinguished by a minimalist compositional aesthetic and a distinctly religious or mystical subject focus.´

Despite also having aleatoric and atonal elements (presences contradictory to Holy minimalism...yet...who can despotically determine that a sound expression to be considered sacred, must not use aleatority or atonal subtle/acupuncturist paraphernalia?), who might argue that this Metaborizumu is not contemplative (or neo-contemplative, if you prefer)? That is not incensed with lyricism? That does not have a certain mystical ´aura´? Do not have an obvious structural simplification however permeates Metaborizumu a conductive line that is still in minimal epicenter.

And more.

T o t a l i s m.

´In music, totalism is a term for a style of art music that arose in the 1980s and 1990s as a developing response to minimalism — parallel to postminimalism, but generally among a slightly younger generation, born in the 1950s.
In the early 1980s, many young composers began writing music within the static confines of minimalism, but using greater rhythmic complexity, often with two or more tempos (or implied tempos) audible at once.´

Explicitly no rhythmic complexity, but only if we think of pyrotechnics in thunderous percussive instruments, which is definitely not the case - not the totalism nor メタボリズム. It would be a completely mistaken view of ´explicitness´ and believe there is no doubt about that. We speak of a rhythmic complecity nakedness - from the minimalist vocabulary. Particularly, I would call ´explicitness of implicitness´. Implicitly (I witness what happens inside the womb of the vibraphone) we find complexity. In this case, the composer's mission is to bring to light the implicitness. In other words, through introverted - intra instrumentistic - perspective, all five pieces r-e-v-e-a-l ´implied tempos´ for all respective durations ... So the issue receives proper tailpiece.

Finally,

N e o - m i n i m a l i s m.

Neo-minimalism is a rather vaguely defined art style/movement of the late 20th, early 21st centuries. It is sometimes referred to as
´neo-geo´, ´Neo-Conceptualism´, ´Neo-Futurism´, ´New Abstraction´, ´Poptometry´, ´Post-Abstractionism´, ´Simulationism´, and ´Smart Art´.
If we set out to relate the terms (whether originally related to the visual arts etc) up to the musical offspring in question, I do not think we would find difficult.

In conclusion,
impossible not to mention that the choice of vibraphone, vocals and broken glass - as well as metaphorically fascinating - is sonically impeccable! And if we focus on the Japanese architectural movement
メタボリズム, this parallel becomes more captivating. The audible spatiality grows in cycles; hyperbolic paraboloid, ´shinchintaisha´, ´capsularidades rizomáticas´...

Otacílio Melgaço works with all the aforementioned diversity and more, taking advantage of advanced and anarchic modes (another paradox for our collection). Thus we can observe the interesting mechanism by which there´s still cosmogonies.
Sought to reveal the
a-n-a-t-o-m-y of a cosmogony. Or, in fact, the
m-e-t-a-b-o-l-i-s-m?" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"´The group's manifesto Metabolism: The Proposals for New Urbanism was published at the World Design Conference. Two thousand copies of the 90 page book were printed and were sold for ¥500 by Kurokawa and Awazu at the entrance to the venue. The manifesto opened with the following statement: ´Metabolism is the name of the group, in which each member proposes further designs of our coming world through his concrete designs and illustrations. We regard human society as a vital process - a continuous development from atom to nebula. The reason why we use such a biological word, metabolism, is that we believe design and technology should be a denotation of human society. We are not going to accept metabolism as a natural process, but try to encourage active metabolic development of our society through our proposals.´

I suggest to readers the task of transposing the words above for the musical artistic context. That's what has made ​​Otacílio Melgaço and so hear his creation gets a new dimensions ... Between Architecture and Music (and the architecture contained in Music): a rare manifestation of the use of vibrating textures; organic phono design; ´major´ and ´minor´ structures in simultaneous layers; continuous renewal; expansion of Pieces regarded as a process of biological connotations; minimalist modules organised into levels of dissipated/fugitive looping; helix-shaped megastructures floating inside sonic cells; cylindrical flexibility; modular units of the work itself (with a short life span) attached to structural compositional framework (with a longer life span) and so infinitely ... A multi topical dimensions.
´Although utopian in their ideals, the Metabolists were concerned with improving the social structure of society with their biologically inspired architecture.´ And now, doubly inspired music ..." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

Also listen:

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/maximinimalistic-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-55-06

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I - Metabolism was a post-war Japanese architectural movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth. It had its first international exposure during CIAM's 1959 meeting and its ideas were tentatively tested by students from Kenzo Tange's MIT studio.

During the preparation for the 1960 Tōkyō World Design Conference a group of talented young architects and designers, including Kiyonori Kikutake, Kisho Kurokawa and Fumihiko Maki prepared the publication of the Metabolism manifesto. They were influenced by a wide variety of sources including Marxist theories and biological processes. Their manifesto was a series of four essays entitled: Ocean City, Space City, Towards Group Form, and Material and Man, and it also included designs for vast cities that floated on the oceans and plug-in capsule towers that could incorporate organic growth. Although the World Design Conference gave the Metabolists exposure on the international stage their ideas remained largely theoretical.

Some smaller, individual buildings that employed the principles of Metabolism were built and these included Tange's Yamanashi Press and Broadcaster Centre and Kurokawa's Nakagin Capsule Tower. The greatest concentration of their work was to be found at the 1970 World Exposition in Osaka where Tange was responsible for master planning the whole site whilst Kikutake and Kurokawa designed pavilions. After the 1973 oil crisis, the Metabolists turned their attention away from Japan and toward Africa and the Middle East.

II - Neo-minimalism is an amorphous art movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It has alternatively been called "neo-geometric" or "neo-geo" art. Other terms include: Neo-Conceptualism, Neo-Futurism, Neo-Op, Neo-Pop, New Abstraction, Poptometry, Post-Abstractionism, Simulationism, and Smart Art.

The aspects of "postmodern art" that have been described as neo-minimalism (and related terms) involve a general "reevaluation of earlier art forms." As its various titles indicate, the movement draws on earlier mid-to-late-20th century developments in Minimalist art, Abstract Expressionism and its offshoots, plus Pop Art, Op Art, and other threads of artistic development.

Contemporary artists who have been linked to the term, or who have been included in shows employing it, include Lorenzo Belenguer, Ashley Bickerton, Jerry Brown, David Burdeny, Catharine Burgess, Marjan Eggermont, Paul Kuhn, Eve Leader, Daniel Ong, Tanya Rusnak, Peter Schuyff, Laurel Smith, Christopher Willard and Tim Zuck. The steel sculptures of Richard Serra have been described as "austere neo-Minimalism..."

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
Wikipedia was the main 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.