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

O r g a n i s a t i o n F ü r K e r n f o r s c h u n g

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 11:11] 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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{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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"Synthesizers, drum machines, vocoders, self-made instruments.

Synthpop, electropop, art pop, ambient, electronic music.

Here, some vintage radio-activity. Probably, through this retro ambience, symbolizing sonically (and ironically) the beginnings of a cyber-technological (irrefragable) age. Increasingly, Man and Machine become indiscernible. Die Mensch-Maschine. Yes, there´s an elegant irony in pointing out the genesis of which we have no idea when it will end. If there´s an end. For the human being as we know: certainly. For a self-sufficient robotic future (with some or no humanity diluted in it), who can say? From time to time, Mr. Melgaço usually approach such theme and again we´re placed face to face with it.

I believe that the paths that O.M. establishes when inseminates its electronic scope with pop cells are quite rousing. He reinvents the physiology of his references (the contemporary layers of this avant-garde wellspring), making them flow in more accessible environments. Is a successful transfertilization between both cultural universes, the erudite and the popular. For Otacílio there are no frontiers, there are no taboos, there´s nothing to impede him from manifesting with all freedom by the most diverse sound spectra. Here, the incognito artist, often complex, and ever mysterious gives way to a magnetic instantaneous appeal. However, it never gives up bold prospects. We can realize how, for example, he links e-modulations and the singing of dolphins!

In brief, if the irreversible expansion of technology will compel us to become heroes towards such a (maybe soulless) ulteriority, I do not know. But when I hear ´Organisation für Kernforschung´, I have the reminder of a charming stanza from the consecrated David Bowie song: ´I, I wish you could swim / Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim ...´ And sing." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"Organisation für Kernforschung.
Organization for Nuclear Research.

´All have the ability to perceive and live in dimensional synthesis, yet they spend time with the sciences trying to separate these realms, splitting the worlds into minutia, seeking the god particle. They are searching high and low, 'out there', for the source of it all, but no matter how many accelerators they build, no matter how far they go, they will never find the source ‘out there' because the source is within.´ (Juliana Loomer)

It´s for exuberant ´nuclearity´, within you, of us ... that perhaps Otacílio Melgaço, by means of the various tentacles of cultural expression (including its backbone which is music), seeks. Maybe what O.M. already found be just what he's trying to show us. Particle by particular particle.

It´s no coincidence that Melgaço makes mention of CERN. The term is used to refer to the laboratory, which in 2013 had 2,513 staff members, and hosted some 12,313 fellows, associates, apprentices as well as visiting scientists and engineers representing 608 universities and research facilities. CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research.

It´s no coincidence that CERN is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web. The main site at Meyrin has a large computer facility containing powerful data processing facilities, primarily for experimental-data analysis; because of the need to make these facilities available to researchers elsewhere, it has historically been a major wide area network hub.

A nucleus is the central and most important part of an object, movement, or group, forming the basis for its activity and growth. In this respect, musically and in all its proliferations (transdisciplinary and synesthetic), Mr. Melgaço is always experimenting. Researching and organizing. And providing us with ecstatic glimpses of these core frontages. Just like now." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - The European Organization for Nuclear Research (French: Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire), known as CERN (derived from the name "Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire"), is a European research organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, the organization is based in a northwest suburb of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border, (46°14′3″N 6°3′19″E) and has 22 member states. Israel is the only non-European country granted full membership;

II - Juliana Loomer is a digital artist related to the entertainment film industry.

...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.