Hoppel Poppel—Program Notes
Gordian Knot
The focus of the song is based upon two stages of contrast and conflict. The first stage is represented in the first half instrumental that alternates a groovy and bass-centric primary theme with two sections of Zappa-esque opposition. The next stage occurs in the second half with the timbral and dynamic shift that introduces Gigi Macabre's plaintive vocals and nihilistic musings on the futility of existence.
Molten Hail
The title is an intentional convolution of rain and in that spirit this piece is a march towards a repose of reduction packaged in a brief ternary form. Martial, but sarcastic and introspective, the opening theme fragments into a signature motive that veers suddenly into the B section. The B section alternates two opposing ideas that eventually coalesce in pathways to a folk-like and more resigned representation of the initial theme.
Folk Song in D
A “folk song” without a moral to the story per se; the piece is a strange kind of forward reflection that looks to the future as possible past; at once optimistic but also unsure, given the exhortation to dream. Musically, this lyrical idea is represented by the musical naivety of the verses pitted against the somber mood of the dreaming exhortations.
Dawn Herald
Last dance of the evening stretching to morning. Sadness, longing, a reprieve of revelry, joining together mixed with fatigue and joy, then separation, the inevitable end of joy, a return to the natural condition of despair though briefly restored. From James—I spend 18 hour shifts overnight when wood firing my kiln. The toughest time is 4 AM. Physical exhaustion leads to wild thinking and stress into I can't concede. As the sun begins to rise, energy returns and stress ebbs. But the effect is illusory and even with the risen sun, the 4 AM darkness lingers in my mind, lying just below the surface until the firing is over and I can get caught up on sleep.
Nelsonian Buzz
Framed by instrumental instability, the lyrics communicate a burgeoning sense of social anxiety and disconnection. This results in attempted escapism and a futile need for “hope.” Finally, the truest connection one finds is our mutual and unstoppable journey into oblivion. The instrumental breaks and discordant lines indicate the attempts at breaking from reality into distraction that ultimately dissolve into resignation. The reference to Nelson is based on “turning a blind eye,” in this case an attempt to turn a blind eye to the world around you in a doomed search for fleeting happiness.
The Mad Hatter's Tea Party
Drunkenness and Debauchery pitted against purity; the duality of seeking both pleasure and innocence, perhaps deluding oneself into believing distraction is real, ultimately choosing revelry instead of a normal prescribed social order. Choosing Dionysus/Bacchus instead of Apollo.
The Dichotomy Paradox
Seemingly impossible choices and conflicts between the world in which one lives versus the world one wants for themselves. The feeling of distance from perhaps an idealized past or indeterminate future. Rather than succumbing to hopeless, however, one accepts that decisions must be made now whatever the outcome might be. Musically this internal dialogue is represented by wild diversions that are eventually compelled to return us to a place where one is forced to “decide” whether for good or ill.
The Jack in the Box Gets a New Bicycle
The Jack in the Box sets out on a bicycle with square wheels seeking acceptance, with wonder, fancy, longing, a joy or relief in the longing. There is a sense of resolve in the opening theme that breaks into a drive for exploration before becoming joyously entangled in a new realm that brings pleasure out of sheer novelty. Ultimately the novelty is itself anti-climactic , acceptance unfound, and spurs us to return to our initial resolve, hinting that a thirst for the unknown is unquenchable. One of the classic themes/scenes I often think about is Charlie-in-the-Box on the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer holiday TV show. Santa, the deus ex machina, whisks all the misfits to homes—and in so doing separates the group of friends. Friends that don’t seem to mind this. The Jack in the Box of this piece moves jerkily like Charlie but takes it upon itself along with another misfit (the bicycle with square wheels) to escape. It’s not important whether the pair give up and return to the Island, simply can’t get off the Island, or escape to “civilization.” The tension is centered on returning to a false friendship vs being separated to individual homes, or the faint hope of the pair joining a home together. And ending one leg of a searching journey.
Scary Movies
A campy tune with dissonant guitars and a groovy bass line. It waxes nostalgic for some kinky fun between a couple of girls and some horror movies back in the VHS era.
North Side; South Side
Chicago; congestion, blues bars, jazz clubs, class tension, street percussion, traffic a lifeblood, heavy on the breaks, impatient honking, steady, remorseless, police and social disquietude, North Side and South Side with a bit of bumper cars at the end.
Peregrination Song
Folksy guitar and a bass that thinks it’s a fiddle undergird a theme of comfort in connection during times of change and transition. Some vestiges of joy are found as lovers and friends support one another in their mutual journeys across time and space. The respite of affection vivifies our protagonists as they venture into the unstable world outside.
Fanfare for an Uncommon Swan
Naivety, innocent, playful, swaying, encircling, clumsiness and intrusion, discomfort, avoidance, ritual returns us to childhood, a chosen bliss of escape from the siren call of a narcissism – a seduction of othering and demonization, manipulation of fear for power; the cult of personality that overwhelms reason and becomes a reality unto itself.
A Political Primer
We live in a proto-fascist state ruled by war criminals and oligarchs. They exploit the people and their labor while building for-profit prisons, pursuing a racist war on drugs, emboldening the police state, increasing surveillance, profiteering for military contractors, and disrupting and destroying our environment.
Blood Sausage for Breakfast
Lamenting, pining, a struggle, an impasse of conformity, disarray, reveries, awoken from a fever dream, dualism of will to power and the death wish, but first a proper British breakfast before marching out to the trenches of filth and decaying bodies.
Let's Go (Hero Song)
Connotative quotations that bookend a rallying call for misfits and their chosen family to band together against fascism. The struggle for justice is heartening regardless of outcomes and our heroes, like a joyful Sisyphus, happily will their boulder uphill; defiance its own luster, ignoring the perhaps fatal hubris by ignoring a broader social coherence.
Rites
Tolling heard through doorways across plains, valleys, countries and boundaries into altered consciousness, creaking calls, an invitation, a funereal incantation chanted over figures burning in effigy, ringing over the doomed, unwinding an ethereal passage, opening oblivion, rapture in doomed release, letting go, fading, rest in annihilation.
Trench Song
Centered on WWI trenches from conception, its lyrics are culled from propaganda posters and MacBeth speeches. The latter sitting as both prediction and a post mortem driving us to the next war. Initially it was to be full of contrasting bombast in the middle sections, it now has a more restrained emotional focus, treating MacBeth as eulogy, beckoning recognition of the horror to set against the cleanliness/orderliness/conformity of the propaganda posters. Music marching to war, witches’ voices soaring skyward, fate giving both what they ask for without missing a beat.