ALBUM REVIEW

The PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE performs 17 MUSICOSYNCRATIC QUIRKS, CROTCHETS, MAGGOTS & MOOD SLIDES from HERR DOKTOR SQUIRCLE'S INEXTRICABLE "NEW PERPLEXITY" Op. 127 by GARY LLOYD NOLAND

by Betsy MacDonald
February 2022

I listened to Gary Lloyd Noland’s 17 MUSICOSYNCRATIC QUIRKS, CROTCHETS, MAGGOTS & MOOD SLIDES from HERR DOKTOR SQUIRCLE'S INEXTRICABLE "NEW PERPLEXITY" Op. 127 on a Friday night, whilst beheading fake flowers for an art project. As I snipped and popped the floral heads from their plastic stems, oft coinciding with a musical “boioioing,” there was a natural synergy that gave rise to ponderings of reality, (un)conventionality and irreverence.

At a glance, the work of this contemporary classical artist is a curiosity – his choice of song titles, album artwork, musical arrangement and instrument names might evoke words like eccentric and weird. The would-be listener would not be wrong, especially after reading the list of alter egos and instrument names on the CD’s back cover. (For the benefit of Dr. Seuss lovers, they’re listed at the end of this review.)

But there’s more going on here with the man who brought us FLAMMABLE COUNTERPOINT, three volumes of piano and chamber work, and a smorgasbord of delicacies and oddities on SoundCloud and YouTube. If you make it past the entry gate of Noland’s sensory carnival, you’ll find yourself in for a rather delightful adventure.

The opening track, “ABSINTHIAN PERFUMIGRATIONS for piano”, presents a lush garden of sound, where one is coaxed to abandon their good sense to the allure of hedonism. For the emotionally untethered, there are far worse places to get lost.

Properly disarmed, we proceed to KAKADEMISCHES DIORAMA where we enter a provocative, arrhythmic soundscape. The comfortable listener begins their descent down the rabbit hole, surrounded by a wacky cacophony that invites existential wonder.

Here we discover the audacity of Noland’s artistry – he challenges the musical establishment with a brazen “why not?” and presents us with a musical dialectic of sorts, where atonal and avant-garde are counterposed with tonality, harmony and conventional beauty. Drawing influence from neo-romanticist and experimental traditions, he is neither beholden to lineage nor indifferent to it. He is, rather, a multi-linguist whose fluency is apparent as he moves playfully across boundaries, a time-and-space traveller whose allegiance, if any, is to the journey itself.
And this album truly is a magical mystery tour. Mystical, but at times tragically real, like the 15-minute “TEEMING IMPERMAFROST” which the artist describes as “a colorful musical visualization of all the deadly viruses, poisonous bacteria, toxic gasses, and dangerous vermin that are being resuscitated by the progressive melting of our planet’s polar ice caps.” Disturbing yet ethereal, the piece is a reminder of the ugliness and ultimate futility of our existence.
Noland is, of course, not afraid of ugliness, nor is he a victim of taking himself too seriously. We see this in song descriptions such as “RAPTUROUS HARRUMPHS are synonymous with snoot farts.”

Again, the casual onlooker might not see past his sense of humour to appreciate the underlying humanity of Noland’s work, and its capacity for tenderness and sincerity. Following “TEEMING IMPERMAFROST” is a moving solo piano tribute to Art Maddox, a friend who Noland describes as “a brilliant musician with a powerful intellect and a warm, generous spirit.” “REQUIESCAT for piano” might just be the jewel of the album, poignant and poetic.

In the subsequent tracks we cross a continent whose topography ranges from creepy to groovy to nostalgic-futuristic, encountering robots and hollow-eyed dolls toiling away in dark warehouses (and perhaps organizing for the inanimate revolution). “NIHILIST MODERNSKY CHIC” might be the album’s true head-severing moment, deftly exposing the falseness of beauty as we know it.

Ah, but we surrender to beauty – the honest kind – in “WILDWOOD REVERIE FOR PIANO,” the album’s closing track. Evoking the natural landscape of the pacific northwest, the song betrays a romanticism for place that finds perfect expression as Noland leads us home.

In Gary Lloyd Noland’s world, real flowers are revered, but fake flowers are also celebrated (and dissected and vomited out). Through his mastery of comprovisation, he exposes listeners to the vivid expanse of his imagination in an unhinged ride that is well worth the price of admission. Do yourself a favour and get swept up in the madness of 17 MUSICOSYNCRATIC QUIRKS, CROTCHETS, MAGGOTS & MOOD SLIDES, where nothing and everything is sacred.
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GARY LLOYD NOLAND: pandaharmonium, malapropsichord, climaxophone, smorgasborgasmatron, bombasticordion, air cacophonator. ORLAN DOY GLANDLY: squealharp, whoopeeboard, ventilator guitar, squawkarina, Gulag whistle, dodecaphone, double-crossilators, electro-kakazoo. DARNOLD OLLY YANG: googah, hee-haw, harrumphinator, dalzheimers, oink bells, nerdy gurdy, didgeridoo-wah-doo, jello thumpers, custard pounders. LON GAYLORD DYLAN: unstitched concussion, belly button cymbals, lambastanets, barking spider engines, underarmonica, stiletto knockers, pudding whackers. DOLLY GRAY LANDON: forbidden flute, yo-yo-boe, B-sharp blarinet, stench horn, mustard gassoon, C-flat grumpet, smackbutt, bombdrone, polyphonic foot tuba. ARNOLD DAY LONGLY: steam viola, nose fiddle, bass pukulele, killjoy buzzer, scaremin

I plan on releasing this album in the near future. Here are the program notes as they appear on the insert: ABSINTHIAN PERFUMIGATIONS evokes the partakement of rich, sweet liqueurs and exotic, decadent desserts whilst drowning in one’s irrevocable sorrows and self-recriminations. American composer Ernesto Ferreri describes this piece as “a splash of harmonic colors with cunningly devised cascading figurations.” KAKADMISCHES DIORAMA is a quasi-satirical representation of the infectious diarrhea produced in academic music departments worldwide. RESTING ON ONE’S QUARRELS is what one does when a pestiferous Internet troll has been quietly laid to rest. NIGHT THOUGHTS are what keep one tossing and turning into the wee hours when one’s brain is afire with intrusive and obsessive cogitations. THE DANCING ROBODUNCES OF DUMMKOPFSBURG was composed in homage to those obstinate souls who persist in their denial of the Death, Destruction, and Damnation besieging them from every quarter. TEEMING IMPERMAFROST is a colorful musical visualization of all the deadly viruses, poisonous bacteria, toxic gasses, and dangerous vermin that are being resuscitated by the progressive melting of our planet’s polar ice caps. REQUIESCAT was composed in memory of Noland’s friend and collaborator, composer/pianist ART MADDOX (1940-2020), who was a brilliant musician with a powerful intellect and a warm, generous spirit. RAPTUROUS HARRUMPHS are synonymous with snoot farts. ELEVEN-LEGGED WALTZ OF THE HARVARD RESISTANCE MOVEMENT is the battle song (without words) of disgruntled Harvard students. FIX SEXATION is a spoonerism for you-know-what as delineated by its rigid fixation on E-flat minor (the key associated with unappeased concupiscence). ELEGY IN HOMAGE TO OUR FOUR-LEGGED LOVED ONES was composed for the purpose of consoling those grieving the loss of their beloved feline/canine companions and/or any other furry quadrupeds for which they feel a deep and abiding affection. It was created as a companion piece to Alkan's Funeral March on the Death of a Parrot. NYMPHONYMANIACAL MINX ROLLICK is a tribute to incorrigible coquettes who chronically tease but fail to please. JADE IN THE WOODS was composed in honor of women (and, yes, men too!) who have been round the block a couple times too many. WE ARE NOT BEMUSED is a solemn admonition to those harboring vain delusions that they can get away scot-free with bamboozling persons of unimpeachable moral integrity. PANEGYRIC IN PRAISE OF THE EMPERORS OF TELEGRAPH AVENUE was composed in tribute to an enduring nose count of titular emperors who have governed the famous avenue, south of the UC Berkeley campus, since time immemorial. NIHILIST MODERNSKY CHIC is a companion piece to KAKADEMISCHES DIORAMA insofar as it spoofs the feigned high seriousness of would-be modernist fashionistas. In the spirit of quaint provincialism, WILDWOOD REVERIE was composed with confidence that anyone who has ever hiked the breathtakingly beautiful (well-nigh Brahmsian) Wildwood Trail in Forest Park, Portland, Oregon will identify with its distinctive ambience. Upon hearing this fantasy, American conductor/composer Keith Clark concurred that its mood was, indeed, reminiscent of aforesaid trail.

GARY LLOYD NOLAND was born in Seattle in 1957 and grew up on a plot of land three blocks south of UC Berkeley known as People’s Park, which has distinguished itself as a site of civil unrest since the late 1960s. As an adolescent, Noland lived for a time in Salzburg (birthplace of Mozart) and Garmisch-Partenkirchen (home of Richard Strauss), where he absorbed a host of musical influences. Having studied with a long roster of acclaimed composers and musicians, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Music from UC Berkeley in 1979, continued his studies at the Boston Conservatory (1981-83), and transferred to Harvard University, where he added to his academic credits a Masters and a PhD in Music Composition in 1989. His ever-expanding catalogue consists of hundreds of works, which include piano, vocal, chamber, orchestral, experimental, and electronic pieces, full-length plays in verse, chamber novels, and graphically notated scores such as his comic book opera Café Ritardando (Op. 89). His critically acclaimed, award-winning 77-hour long Gesamtkunstwerk JAGDLIED: A Chamber Novel for Narrator, Musicians, Pantomimists, Dancers & Culinary Artists (Op. 20) was listed by one reviewer as the Number One Book of 2018. In recent months (Autumn, 2021) Noland published three volumes of his compositions (COLLECTED PIANO WORKS: Volumes 1 & 2 and COLLECTED CHAMBER WORKS: in Varying Combinations for Piano & Strings), which are available from book retailers worldwide. Gary lives with his wife Kaori in the Portland, Oregon metro area. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com.

The PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE is a one-man-band consisting of composer GARY LLOYD NOLAND and his five alter egos: ORLAN DOY GLANDLY, DARNOLD OLLY YANG, LON GAYLORD DYLAN, DOLLY GRAY LANDON, and ARNOLD DAY LONGLY.

Cover illustrations are of the Scissorman from Heinrich Hoffman’s “Struwwelpeter” (top panel) and Jean-Marc Côté’s futuristic brain-feeding machine from his postcard “At School” (bottom panel).