I.C.O.M. is a collaboration between Belgian vocal artist and composer Ine Claes and Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and composer Otacílio Melgaço. Otacílio Melgaço is a composer, arranger, conductor, multi-instrumentalist (besides, synergistically, creator in universes - borderless, interpenetrating - of dance, visual arts, photography, dramaturgy / literature ...) originating from Minas Gerais, Brazil. O.M. has more than 300 albums released, dedicating himself to various musical prisms under challenging contemporary lenses. 

Bandcamp release 21 June 2023

​

​

 

O t a c í l I o M e l g a ç o {conception | composition | arrangement | synopsis | instrumentation | conducting | soundscapes / concrete effects | engineering & sound design | art design [one of the background photos of the booklet] | production | direction} 

I n e  C l a e s {conception | composition | arrangement | synopsis | vocals | field recordings / objects | art design [cover image, booklet, one of the background photos of] | production | direction}
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L O G B O O K 

<< Since his appreciation of some of her performances on European soil, it all started when Otacílio Melgaço and Ine Claes met virtually. Under the wings and claws of remote technology that is capable of intertwining multi and transdisciplinary artists with more acuity, as is the case of both. He, a Brazilian composer, arranger, poly-instrumentalist (as well as a playwright, visual artist, etc.), brought new airs of auspicious aperture to possible collaborations. She, Belgian vocal artist, composer, choreographer and performer, embraced the projection of this breathable flow and reciprocated the positive signal. Still under the aura of those beginnings, for Melgaço, in that timeframe, much more than a participation in one of his countless albums, the relationship with Claes would become a partnership and with all the enchantment and isonomy of the alliances that beckon through the most promising movements: viscerally complicit and metaphysically expandable. Having decided on the transoceanic phonocultural pact, it was time to draw up a cartography. Under which sidereal design would both be oriented? Otacílio suggested a kind of (game of) chess. Based on maximum conciseness, this would happen in just two moves. As in a clash between a couple of samurais, it takes years and years (or centuries) of practice so that, in a pair of blows, everything is consecrated. The difference, still exploring such metaphor, is that Melgaço and Claes would be triumphant at the same time, and the rite won will be one of Life, of more blossoming Life. He would create an initial compositional Piece that would be presented to her and thus there would be another layer adhered, reaching the finished completion of the making. Than the opposite. She would take the first step, he would respond like a contradance and so on. Another minutiae that was part of the agreement: Melgaço would take on all the instrumental features and Claes the vocals (& lyrics). In some Pieces, she also worked with field recordings and objects. He, in turn, included a certain voice in CognitiveRestructuring and in the bonus track, as an unexpected intervention. Apart from that, everything was allowed, now there were other claws and wings: ... of creation; they were already in the womb of the engendering genesis. It was a few months that separated the process of this serpent until it bit its own tail. Some curiosities that could not be missing from a / this Logbook, for example: in the meantime, the Belgian artist became pregnant and such magical temporality walked side by side with what would become I.C.O.M., the name with which the present album - that both bring in the light - was baptized. [The Opus Fœtus was Otacílio's homage to this special passage in Claes' life.] Still on baptisms, I.C.O.M. has a very direct inspiration from the Brazilian musician. His suggestion is, in fact, the initial letters of their names. And, could not fail to be mentioned, there is a reference to the word 'ICON'. We could resort here to an encyclopetic intervention, and open a curious parenthesis. An Icon [from Ancient Greek εἰκών (eikṓn) 'image, resemblance'] is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; 'an Icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion’. The most common subjects include Christ, Mary, saints and angels. Although especially associated with portrait-style images concentrating on one or two main figures, the term also covers most of the religious images in a variety of artistic media produced by Eastern Christianity, including narrative scenes, usually from the Bible or the lives of saints. Icons are most commonly painted on wood panels with egg tempera, but they may also be cast in metal or carved in stone or embroidered on cloth or done in mosaic or fresco work or printed on paper or metal, etc. Comparable images from Western Christianity may be classified as ´Icons´, although ´iconic´ may also be used to describe the static style of a devotional image. In the Greek language, the term for Icon painting uses the same word as for 'writing', and Orthodox sources often translate it into English as Icon writing. (...) Is there a truly religious approach on the part of Otacílio and Ine if we look for an exegesis of the sound Work? No, conventionally, no. But if the term 'religion' can find its origin in 'religare' [re (meaning 'again') + ligare (‘bind' or´ connect´)], there will be the conviction that this is one of the most quintessential attributes that I.C.O.M. has. In the broadest and most imaginable senses. According to statements by Melgaço himself, there is also a certain irony if a musical Offspring - here, conjuncturally -, it receives as a title that refers us to the vision. Thinking that we currently live in a kind of ocular dictatorship. In this context, it is possible to address extrapolating readings such as, expressly cited by Otacílio himself, Acheiropoieta and Iconoclasm. That said, in addition to the synonyms image / portrait / likeness / representation / symbol / figure / statue / model, there is, finally, the idea of Idol, a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration. As well as appearing in Linguistics (a sign whose form directly reflects the thing it means, for example, the word snarl pronounced in a snarling way) and even in Computing (a symbol or graphic representation on a screen of a program, option, or window, especially one of several for selection). Joining the dots and mirroring the terms, for Idol, Otacílio responds exactly with Iconoclasm. For what could become a self-centered self-representation of the two sonic creators (although the work is a portrait of both), Acheiropoieta proposes a more ethereal, multi subjectivist, transcendent dimension. And if we reap in Linguistics the so genuine and authentic aspect that connects composers-and-compositions, in Computing there is the insinuation of the selection process and, from that, of distinctive adoption. Representation of the odyssey that is an artistic fertilization that takes place in amplitude and immeasurability until it gains heads, trunks and limbs. Of the creatures already embodied and with an indication of who was the initiator in the order of authorship, they are: 

mCqUEEN (Otacílio Melgaço & Ine Claes) 
The Exchange of Green Grass (Ine Claes & Otacílio Melgaço) 
Fœtus (Otacílio Melgaço & Ine Claes) 
CognitiveRestructuring (Ine Claes & Otacílio Melgaço) 
Hundert Wasser (Otacílio Melgaço & Ine Claes) 
and, as a bonus track, 
The Return [Senti Saudades] (Otacílio Melgaço - with recitation by Ine Claes from a fragment of a poem by Marie Van Langendonck -). 

An observation about the composition that closes the album, as a historical addendum. Marie Barbe Antoinette Rutgeerts Van Langendonck (Antwerp, 7 October 1798 – Gravataí, 6 June 1875) was a Belgian poet and writer. She published two books of poetry: Aubepines, published in 1841, and Heures poétiques, published in 1846. When Marie became a widow, in 1857, she decided to renounce the comfortable life in her native country and emigrated to Brazil, where her two children had come to work as colonists. In fact, the children were part of a colonization project, the Harmonia colony, on the banks of the Jacuí river, proposed by the Belgian count of Montravel, a project that later would have failed. Madame Van Langendonck wrote a diary describing her experiences in Brazilian lands, during the period in which she lived in Rio Grande do Sul, between 1857 and 1859. Her narrative was very lively and colorful, full of intelligent observations about the country, the colonies, emigrants and the Brazilian government. After two years, she returned to Europe. Missing it, three years later she was reunited with her children, who had already settled in the Harmonia colony. Such ´saudade´ (longing / missing) is expressed in the poem entitled O Retorno (1863). Melgaço chose a fragment of this poem for the ending of I.C.O.M. based on the original Portuguese version. Otacílio translated it into English and presented it to Ine. Claes, in turn, took the words to French and Dutch, Belgian languages. Both are heard in the definitive version (by Melgaço, perceptibly divided into channels). The initial idea of Otacílio was based on a balanced mention of Brazil and Belgium, since it is the poetry of an author from that European country to be read / recited in the official idioms and / but that made direct reference to Brazilian lands (O.M. kept two words in his mother tongue, by the way: ́Senti Saudades ́, which became the subtitle of the sound Piece).  

´Brasil, te revejo após três anos de ausência 
No entanto te deixei para não mais voltar, 
Mas a força de tua atração eu ignorava, 
Pensei apenas uma lembrança de ti levar. 
Mas debaixo deste outro céu, o céu de minha pátria, 
Tive frio: de teu horizonte de fogo senti saudades 
Da majestosa floresta a que nunca se esquece 
Quando ali se viveu somente sob o olhar de Deus. 
Salve, ó nova pátria de meus filhos, 
Salve. Eu venho recuperar à sombra de tuas florestas 
Este lugar ignorado onde minha vida vai acabar 
Aonde eu irei, pela última vez, abençoá-los.´ 
— O Retorno 

´Brazil, I see you again after three years of absence 
However I left you never to return, 
But the force of your attraction I ignored, 
I thought only a memory of you to take. 
But under this other sky, the sky of my homeland, 
I was cold: I missed your fiery horizon senti saudades 
From the majestic forest to which you never forget 
When there we lived only under the eyes of God. 
Hail, O new homeland of my children, 
Hail. I come to recover in the shadow of your forests 
This overlooked place where my life will end 
Where I will go, for the last time, to bless you.´ 
— The Return 

Still on the engendering ´methodology´, it is important to point out that there was no hierarchy drawn from who initiated the sonic Spawn. The importance of what was proposed at the beginning is the same as the one that added a second layer. For the two strata form a third, which is the composition itself and thus: a unitary sound Work. The difference is that, therefore, whoever started it brought the conception to light. Once this record is made, it is inoubliable to draw attention to the sophistication of the photograph - by Ine Claes - that is stamped on the cover of the album. A coexistence of (imagetic) perspectives that stands out as a valuable analogy to the sound content itself. And here I emphasize the similar parallel between the two nations of origin of the respective artists, represented in the scenic views inside this present booklet (one by Claes, the other by Melgaço), maintaining the cognate liaison that we witnessed in the aforementioned The Return [Senti Saudades]. (...) Having unveiled all these structural perceptions, we would reach the summit of drawing considerations about every reverberating Piece contained in I.C.O.M., as usual. Echoing the ´doctrine´ of the iconoclasts that is present there / here too, I always found it unsound (the pun is pertinent) that someone tries to transplant into the field of words what is enlivened in terms of...sound. ´Writing about music´ (in the sense of wanting to describe it or proposing some kind of X-ray) would be, in addition to being vexingly redundant, chimerically the same as ´dancing about architecture´, here's the already established cliché. If there is then an ad rem suggestion to be made, culminatingly, it is: listen to I.C.O.M. with all your elevated openness to immersions. Melgaço and its atmospheric-conceptual poly amplitude in extraordinary approaches emanating from mesmerizing instrumentations, Claes and its terrific upward vocal involvement under the epidermis of fascinatingly metamorphic words; this surprising Duo, without any shadow of a doubt, lives up, in depth and ascension, to Charles Mingus' maxim: ´My music is evidence of my soul's will to live´. Alpha and Omega, their music is the most corporificated evidence of the will to live in each of our souls. >> 
 
by Caio Campbell 
(Anglo-Brazilian semiotician and musician) 

Ine Claes: << It is exiting to begin a collaboration with someone on the other side of the planet you don't know and have never seen. Throughout the process we shared what was going on in our homeland, what was happening in our personal lives, what was living in our hearts. These stories and anekdotes became the nourishment, the inspiration for this album. A dialogue with a stranger. An artistic evolution purely based on hearing, listening and reflecting. Exchanging, responding to each other through sound, creating a language that became our language. A language that grew over time and transcended habitual communication of words and shared thoughts. To meet another artist in this context and create a connection in which such pure communication exists is rare. I.C.O.M. is a work I carry in my heart, I share with Otacílio in an endless journey where our joined work will keep living and evolving in the listener’s ear and soul. >> 

Otacílio Melgaço: << I like how the English language handles the word ´alien´. Between displaced nouns and exciting adjectives, it can be both ´foreign´ and ´belonging to other worlds´, 
´extraterrestrial´. From this, the derivations would be countless: from ´outsider´ to ´outlander´, from ´noncitizen´ to ´expatriate´, from ´trespasser´ to ´conqueror´ ... until hell freezes over. ´Barbarians always think of themselves as the bringers of civilization´, as I hear from Pierre Schaeffer. Maybe that's why I essentially prefer the barbarians and not the civilized ones. Living, alongside Ine Claes, the saga that is this sonic œuvre, has become an adventure worthy of Marco Polo. Of Kublai Khan, as far as. Such an unexpected, unpredictable artistic alliance flirting with hazard in the ideal measure, never abolishing chance, always abolishing the abolition; un coup de dés plus coup d'état. In intriguing simultaneity, the compositions that reveal themselves in I.C.O.M. were reflections of the perpetuum mobile of our existences throughout the respective crossings however I feel that they belong to a scintilla that escape from any timespace. A fine balance point has been established through such partnership that can be multifacetedly metabolizable. If my trans-spatial instrumental performances are considered, by some, otherworldly, behold, Mrs. Claes' voice, with a shamanistic modernity, brings the soles of our feet closer to the ground without losing their levitating gift. If the spellbinding words sung or pronounced by her present us with a syntactic axis open to palpable cognitions, the meta-acoustic elements that give pulp to my climactic apparitions, rhizomatize fertilize what is linguistically untranslatable, unnamable. I quote these two Sixth Senses, they could be bazillions of. It's these ´wormholes´, in physics: a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in - here, inescapable - spacetime, which give the album this phantasmal concreteness; I proudly conclude. 
Tractatus (I)logico-Phonosophicus, I.C.O.M. is the Otherness.  
It is the Chronicle of a Metamorphosis.  
Stars and Topsoil.  
Sunburst and Snowblind. 
T w i n l i g h t s . . . . >>  

credits

released June 21, 2023 

Ine Claes: Vocals, field recordings, objects 
Otacílio Melgaço: All instrumentation + orchestration 
Booklet: Ine Claes with pics by Ine Claes & Otacílio Melgaço 
LOGBOOK in booklet written by by Caio Campbell 
(Anglo-Brazilian semiotician and musician)

license

all rights reserved

​

​