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Unvanity Case Singles Series | Chelsea Hotel #8 {Otac​í​lio Melga​ç​o} [duration 07​​​​​​​​​:​​​​​02]

by Otacílio Melgaço

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U n v a n i t y C a s e S i n g l e s S e r i e s

C h e l s e a H o t e l # 8

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 07:02] 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)

*

{Note by P.S.P. -

U N V A N I T Y
C A S E
S I N G L E S
S E R I E S,

Eight releases that portray, among many glimpsed, a Melgacian sonorous fantastical microcosm.

Symphony, suite, sonata, cantata, pastoral, madrigal, sarabanda, fantasia, fugue, rhapsody, capriccio, passacaglia, berceuse, tombeau, lied, concertino, gimnopedia, oratorio, mass, operetta, opera ... are customary part of the compositional vocabulary of Otacílio Melgaço. Here and now we come in contact with other perspectives (with one or two exceptions) that are beyond the frontiers of modern classical genre. Extrapolations already contained in several albums produced by him and which are also treasures of his vast discography but never before gathered in a Series.

An image full of perspicacity when we think of a portable ´compendium´ of quite personal complementary aesthetic man-made objects (and here I´m referring to the adaptation of the term by Mr. Melgaço), the Vanity Case is a small handbag used for carrying cosmetics or toiletries.

Unvanity Case (Singles Series). It´s possible to perceive at least two fundamentals embedded in the O.M. wordplay. There´s the properly denial of ´vanity´ (the dictionarist meaning: excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements; the quality of being worthless or futile. So he invents a neologism to reveal this clear denudation) and also the symbolist recognition of artifacts gathered in the same casing as is the special case, for example and in addition to others, of a mirror.

In a fashion, the message that the composer and multi-instrumentalist conveys to us is clear:

He looks at himself, limpidly. Something a great artist is often doing. Yes, paradoxically, Melgaço does not give up (peer through the subsequent figures of speech) ´cosmetic & toiletry´ elements of music (timbres, harmonies, durations, pauses, melodies, dynamics, rhythms, pitches, articulations, textures, technicalities, arrangements, mixes, masterings ...) and, consequently (as expected and desired): he shows himself to us. Something that often a great artist should do with transparency and, of course, a certain mystery. Another paradox. He shows himself to us just as in Greek tragedy/comedy, the Mask (again: ´cosmetic & toiletry´) does not hide: it brings even more to light who the character is.

And, resuming the title exegesis, reflecting on the portable character: in the condition of ´perpetuum mobile´, every EP brings us to a peculiar place (situated in some historical snapshot) in one of the four corners of the world or even orbiting the planet earth. This conceptual ballast, therefore, is a mention of travels and journeys and trips and gigs (and rays and twinkles) and sagas perpetrated by the artist. I draw attention to the fact that the relationship between the niche itself and the respective musical proposal is direct, bright. ´Moto perpetuo´ as much as the experiments with his music as being a restless, challenger creator - who takes risks in constant search and daring -. Creator in its integrity/fragmentation, complexity/plainness; O.M.: an ontological mosaic, a kaleidoscope in person always in displacement and in our direction, provoking us but, I have no doubt, in humanistic celebration. This, citing only one of the facets of an Art-in-Magnification as is the Melgacian.

´Everything is metaphor´, Otacílio usually utters. And when we realize the polysemous richness of his inventions (nor need I say that the vocable 'case' is equally read as ´an instance of a particular situation; an example of something occurring´), we can conclude how absolutely everything that the/this artist plays can be an exciting, constructive and Graceful fluxuosity. Through the looking glass, the reflector, the speculum! And who inhabits the other side of the mirror?

Eight times,
the response that - hitherto - echoes eight times,
Ladies and Gentlemen, is:
E a c h O n e O f U s.}

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"Subject: Art. I particularly do not have much sympathy for the condition of becoming myself a hostage of definitions, labels, borders. Some people believe that if everything gets categorized, they will have more ´control´ over this or that. The word is: ´domain´. Because understanding and assimilation and absorption and introjection ... seem to me much more interesting when a work of art can be an open work and we, yes, attentive to the experience of apprehension that we have before know it, during and after. All this changes with time, with our maturity, our expanded horizons, with acuities for more valuable and comprehensive re-readings.

Can we define ´Chelsea Hotel #8´ in any way? This is (some kind of) Rock? Jazz? Is it a Fusion? Not having an answer becomes the best answer.

But let's go moreover:

The drums could figure in any of the most expressive Krautrock bands. [And so Otacílio closes with a golden key the cycle started with ´Zodiak Free Arts Lab´. In this ´οὐροβόρος´ (´ouroboros´), the mouth bites the tail as if by magic. Note that only the Piece that opens the Series and now the one that ends are recorded live. Another adroit metaphorical configuration, do you agree?] However there are other passages in which this same instrument would be perfectly inserted in a bold context of ... Free Jazz.

Jazz. The complex and interlaced guitar of O.M. has a degree of kinship with Ornette Coleman's Harmolodics.

What about the effects of electric bass? A psychedelic dimension, increasing further these exciting Melgacian articulations.

Plus. In part, would we as well be able to make parallels between a certain atmosphere of ´Chelsea Hotel #8´ and the first phase of the Miles Davis´ fusion era? Yes, I think so. Being more accurate: the ´Electric Miles´ - from 1968 to 1975 -. Even with the legitimate advent of other parameters, there´s a mighty threshold of such ´zeitgeist´ brought back to contemporaneity here.

(...)

In short, this concise petard is all that I said as well as it may be anything else! Or like Mr. Davis himself once whispered: ´I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.´ Sooner or later (if it has not happened yet) we´ll be more and more open to open works. And, in favor of, the doors of ´this´ Chelsea are wide wide open too. Be welcome." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"The Hotel Chelsea – also called the Chelsea Hotel, or simply the Chelsea – is a historic New York City hotel and landmark built between 1883 and 1885, known primarily for the notability of its residents over the years.

It has been the home of numerous writers, artists and actors. Though the Chelsea no longer accepts new long-term residencies, the building is still home to many who lived there before the change in policy. As of August 1, 2011, the hotel is closed for renovations. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea, and poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso chose it as a place for philosophical and artistic exchange. It is also known as the place where the writer Dylan Thomas was staying when he died of pneumonia on November 9, 1953, and where Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, was found stabbed to death on October 12, 1978. Arthur Miller has written a short piece, ´The Chelsea Affect´, describing life at H.C. in the early 1960s.

Much of Chelsea's history has been colored by the musicians who have resided or visited there. Some of the most prominent are Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Nico, Édith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Rufus Wainwright, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Janis Joplin, Canned Heat, Iggy Pop, Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Thunders, Phil Lynott, Pink Floyd, Henri Chopin, John Cale, Virgil Thomson, Alexander Frey, and Chick Corea.

Whether betwixt those who in the past were visitants even as the composers/performers who brought to light references to the legendary Hotel, right now a new and sonorous name is included." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - The Hotel is also featured in numerous songs, including:

"Visions of Johanna", "Sara", "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" by Bob Dylan; "Chelsea Morning" by Joni Mitchell; "Chelsea Hotel #2" by Leonard Cohen, later covered by various artists; "Chelsea Girls" by Nico; "The Chelsea Hotel" by Graham Nash; "Like a Drug I Never Did Before" by Joey Ramone;

II - Is often associated with the Warhol superstars, as Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey directed "Chelsea Girls" (1966), a film about his Factory regulars and their lives at the hotel. Chelsea residents from the Warhol scene included Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Mary Woronov, Holly Woodlawn, Andrea Feldman, Paul America, Rene Ricard, Nico, and Brigid Berlin;

III - "Chelsea Hotel" is a book of photographs by the Brazilian Claudio Edinger, published in 1983.

...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.

credits

released January 11, 2017

Hear more here:
soundcloud.com/otaciliomelgaco

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O t a c í l i o
M e l g a ç o {conception | composition | arrangement | synopsis | instrumentation | orchestration | engineering & sound design | art design | production | direction}

guitar & effects - Melgaço / electric bass - Allen / drums - Butler

Estúdio Yoknapotawpha/BR

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Otacílio Melgaço Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Multi-
Instrumentalist
from
Minas Gerais,
Brazil.
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