V a t h e k

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 48:40] 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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"Inspired by medieval music from the Gothic period (13th to 15th centuries), Otacílio Melgaço, based on the Gothicism (in its most seminal silhouette), baptizes the three Pieces of this hypnotic work. A bewitching interpenetration for both our fecund imaginations and outcropped senses. ´Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil´, you agree? ´The Castle of Otranto´, ´Vathek´ and ´The Monk´ are wombs of a terrific, preternatural truth. ´For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction´, states Lord Byron. We´re here, Ladies and Gentlemen, before the truest face of the audible beauty: the one that houses the fantastic, the one that reveals the supernatural.

´Obscurity is necessary in order to experience the Terror of the unknown´, if we delve into Gothic Romanticism. ´Obscurity is necessary in order to experience the unknown Self´, Melgaço would say, as I see him. That´s his sublimity. Thus Otacílio extrapolates a literary (or musical) genre to elevate his Aesthetics to the h-u-m-a-n genre/race (that all encompasses).

´Vathek´, the album as a whole, is replete with atriums, porticos, vaults, crypts and galleries. Therefore: crumbling castles, desolate abbeys, haunted forests, secret passageways, hidden rooms, dungeons ... however without any pyrotechnics. On the contrary, the level of subjectivity is so high that O.M. is not interested in petrify, horrify, put the fear of God (or of ...) into anyone by means of sound (and narrative) stratagems, ruses, devices, maneuvers, but rather to seek in our abyss the most ascensional. What he does is transfix us, leaving us motionless (dead-alive) but in view of the Wonder.

Anyone who does not have a panoramic view of Gothic literature, if
it´s deepened through research, will find that its reach goes far beyond stereotypes since carrying this theme to the present, the Brazilian composer/multi-instrumentalist, ergo, transcends the psychology of terror (fear, madness, sexual debauchery, deformation of the body) and supernatural imagery (ghosts, demons, specters, monsters).

Mr. Melgaço suggests directing a spotlight on: political discussion (monarchism, revolutions, industrialization), reflections on power (colonialism, the role of women, sexuality), religious aspects (catholicism, inquisition, crusades), aesthetic conceptions (neoclassicism, romanticism, ´sublime´), philosophical (Nature, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau), as well as other possible interpretative keys. If we all look hard, we´ll see that these topics are nowadays extremely metaphorical and recontextualized. Three examples among several: 1) - When many nations purposely want to make ´terrorist´ and ´Muslim´ synonyms, would not it be a form disguised as neo-crusade?; 2) - When some Agrochemical and Agricultural Biotechnology Corporations become predominant about the triad ´transgenic seeds, royalties, and intellectual property´, will we not face a disguised form of neo-colonialism (in the near future)?; 3) - When some rulers cling to power; through ´mandates´ that renew themselves to the point of becoming endless; in a totalitarian manner; instituting the mafia state; eliminating - in many ways, from the most subtle to the most drastic - its opponents; despite being elected (suspiciously); would it not be a disguised form of neo-monarchy (that is, eternalized in their masked kingdoms: ´anointed beings´ who enjoy a ´democratic dictatorial´ reign)? And so on. [These are relevant proofs of how much Otacílio Melgaço makes contemporary everything he touches (either through thematics placed in focus, or by his impactful/reflective sound incursions etc.), and the more he rises to the timeless, the more decisive is his relation to present times and the potency to artistically influence its course.]

Once this addendum is explained, let us return to the sonic universe subtly replete with (no less metaphorical and recontextualizing) crumbling castles, desolate abbeys, haunted forests, secret passageways, hidden rooms, dungeons ... There are undisclosed pathways between one track and another (until our hearing uncovers them); one of the most captivating curiosities of the work is the inventive utilization of Tritone (in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church forbade the use of this dissonance that at the time was considered demonic. The tritone interval was known as ´diabolus in musica´); the compositional and stylistic elements of ´holy´ (poignantly ritualistic) content make the proposed auscultatable scenario more intriguing because it´s in the very sacredness (antithetic to any Gothic caricature) that O.M. will seek and bring to light the master signification of this creation (see the almost blinding radiance that exalts the cover of the album; demonstration of this very rich paradox). Yes, and so on ...

´I have always believed that the material world is governed by nonmaterial sources, (...) an exercise in the spiritual as well as the material. I have always been attracted to the Gothic and spiritual imagination, and I've always been interested in visionaries´, uttered the English biographer, novelist and critic Peter Ackroyd. [Nothing more g-o-t-h-i-c than the current relationship between reality and virtuality, man and technology, do you agree?] Anyway, Ackroyd's phrase could be as much about ´Vathek´ as about the very creator of this designing trilogical (tritonious) Opus.

Goþa fara!" (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

"As you know, Gothic art was a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France out of Romanesque art in the 12th century AD, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, and much of Southern and Central Europe, never quite effacing more classical styles in Italy. In the late 14th century, the sophisticated court style of International Gothic developed, which continued to evolve until the late 15th century. In many areas, especially Germany, Late Gothic art continued well into the 16th century, before being subsumed into Renaissance art. Primary media in the Gothic period included sculpture, panel painting, stained glass, fresco and illuminated manuscripts.

A leap now, toward Melgacian ´Vathek´ and the Gothicism.

Dark romanticism (often conflated with Gothicism) is a literary subgenre of Romanticism. From its very inception in the late 18th century, Romanticism's celebration of euphoria and sublimity had been dogged by an equally intense fascination with melancholia, insanity, crime and shady atmosphere, with the options of ghosts and ghouls, the grotesque, and the irrational. The name ´Dark Romanticism´ was given to this form by the literary theorist Mario Praz in his lengthy study of the genre published in 1930, ´The Romantic Agony´.

According to the critic G. R. Thompson, ´the Dark Romantics adapted images of anthropomorphized evil in the form of Satan, devils, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls´ as emblematic of human nature. Thompson sums up the characteristics of the subgenre, writing:

´Fallen man's inability fully to comprehend haunting reminders of another, supernatural realm that yet seemed not to exist, the constant perplexity of inexplicable and vastly metaphysical phenomena, a propensity for seemingly perverse or evil moral choices that had no firm or fixed measure or rule, and a sense of nameless guilt combined with a suspicion the external world was a delusive projection of the mind--these were major elements in the vision of man the Dark Romantics opposed to the mainstream of Romantic thought.´

Perhaps what O.M. means by his offspring is to suggest an ambiguous, double-meaning ´redemption´ for this ´man´. Not through moralism or religion.

Through art.

Through great Art." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

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I - Gothic fiction, which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance. The name Gothic refers to the (pseudo)-medieval buildings, emulating Gothic architecture, in which many of these stories take place.

The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century, with authors such as Charles Maturin, Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and Daphne du Maurier;

II - Vathek (alternatively titled Vathek, an Arabian Tale or The History of the Caliph Vathek) is a Gothic novel written by William Beckford. It was composed in French beginning in 1782, and then translated into English by Reverend Samuel Henley in which form it was first published in 1786 without Beckford's name as An Arabian Tale, From an Unpublished Manuscript, claiming to be translated directly from Arabic. Vathek capitalised on the 18th (and early 19th) century obsession with all things Oriental, which was inspired by Antoine Galland's translation of The Arabian Nights (itself retranslated, into English, in 1708). Beckford was also influenced by similar works from the French writer Voltaire. His originality lay in combining the popular Oriental elements with the Gothic stylings of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). The result stands alongside Walpole's novel and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) in the first rank of early Gothic fiction;

III - The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. A quickly written book from early in Lewis's career (in one letter he claimed to have written it in ten weeks, but other correspondence suggests that he had at least started it, or something similar, a couple of years earlier), it was published before he turned twenty. Its convoluted and scandalous plot has made it one of the most important Gothic novels of its time, often imitated and adapted for the stage and the screen;

IV - In music theory, the tritone is strictly defined as a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones. For instance, the interval from F up to the B above it (in short, F–B) is a tritone as it can be decomposed into the three adjacent whole tones F–G, G–A, and A–B. According to this definition, within a diatonic scale there is only one tritone for each octave. For instance, the above-mentioned interval F–B is the only tritone formed from the notes of the C major scale. A tritone is also commonly defined as an interval spanning six semitones. According to this definition, a diatonic scale contains two tritones for each octave. For instance, the above-mentioned C major scale contains the tritones F–B (from F to the B above it, also called augmented fourth) and B–F (from B to the F above it, also called diminished fifth, semidiapente, or semitritonus). In twelve-equal temperament, the tritone divides the octave exactly in half.

In classical music, the tritone is a harmonic and melodic dissonance and is important in the study of musical harmony. The tritone can be used to avoid traditional tonality: "Any tendency for a tonality to emerge may be avoided by introducing a note three whole tones distant from the key note of that tonality." Contrarily, the tritone found in the dominant seventh chord helps establish the tonality of a composition. These contrasting uses exhibit the flexibility, ubiquity, and distinctness of the tritone in music. The condition of having tritones is called tritonia; that of having no tritones is atritonia. A musical scale or chord containing tritones is called tritonic; one without tritones is atritonic.

...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.