Moving About, Humming, Still Our Flowers are Blooming Under the Old Portcullis, by Dan Plonsey and Daniel Popsicle

Moving About, Humming, Still Our Flowers are Blooming Under the Old Portcullis by Dan Plonsey and Daniel Popsicle, released 21 June 2001 1. Portcullis: Intro 2. Portcullis: A 3. Portcullis: B 4. Portcullis: C 5. Portcullis: D 6. Portcullis: E 7. Portcullis: F 8. Portcullis: G 9. Portcullis: H 10. Portcullis: I 11. Portcullis: J 12. Portcullis: K 13. Portcullis: L 14. Portcullis: L-remix 15. Portcullis: M 16. Portcullis: N 17. Portcullis: O The Music of El Cerrito is largely unknown, even in the San Francisco Bay area (in which it is situated, to the northeast), where all varieties of musics of the world are avidly consumed by a population with a notorious hunger for exotic new sounds. This recording presents Part One of The Kingdoms Diptych, a pair of lengthy works performed by the Daniel Popsicle ensemble. Moving About, Humming, Still Our Flowers are Blooming, Under the Old Portcullis. The title comes from combining the shards remaining from two otherwise forgotten dreams. The background: once, there was a single kingdom, but when its king died, it was divided among his heirs, and in consequence, we have to this day a Kingdom of Plants, and a Kingdom of Animals. Animals are the ones you see “Moving About,” whereas the Plants are “Still.” Musical works are neither plant nor animal, yet the overall health of the Musical World is just as dependent upon diversity of species as is our biological world. “Humming” is the sound of activity. The backbone of this composition is an hour-long melody which I wrote as I hummed it, an hour's length out of the infinite ray of time. “Our Flowers?” Whose flowers? All of ours: a collection belonging equally, by birthright, to every individual animal and plant on this planet. A full-color arc of the life cycle, the infinite loop of time. A “Portcullis” is a castle's iron-barred gate. “Blooming Under” is the surreptitious means by which flowering plants enter into even the most maddeningly impenetrable Kafka-esque castle. This music embraces both the stasis and movement inherent in “blooming under”: the linear (the ever-evolving melody) and the cyclic (the short repeating patterns which make up the accompanying parts, coming and going according to the seasons). Imagine an old castle, just recently re-entered and re-opened after centuries of inactivity. This music drives the solemn yet celebratory processional which marks the beginning of a new era, as inhabitants emerge from the castle, out onto the sunny plane. Bearing fruits and vegetables, hundreds of people in bright colors parade forth, mingling among various animals: giant anteaters, sandhill cranes, several species of lemur, and a dozen elephants. And under the elephants, the shit-shovelers dart about. First, they scatter straw over the shit, then they scoop it all up. For some of us in the crowd, this daring and quasi-artistic shit-shoveling is the day's highlight. Whether considered as evolution or as inflitration, the drunken crawl of consciousness eventually passes under every portcullis, until the merging of the real and the imaginary is complete. This piece was written with the members of Daniel Popsicle in mind, and it is dedicated to them for their frequent encouragement, and for their willingness to travel from their warm homes to my garage in the Northern Hills Region of El Cerrito for rehearsals. I want to offer special gratitude and love to our late bassist, Matthew Sperry (1968 – 2003), and to his wife Stacia and their daughter Lila. Dan Plonsey, November, 2003 El Cerrito