On Leap of Faith: "Alien yet familiar, bizarre yet completely fascinating. Expanding, contracting, erupting, settling down, always as one force..." - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
2
PEK - samples, Ableton mix, contra-alto clarinet, alto & tenor
saxophones, oboe, dulzaina, melodicas, metal, electronics, MS-20,
daxophone, [d]ronins, taxi horn, clown horn, fog horn, aquasonic,
guyzheng, slide whistle, recitation, voice
Yuri Zbitnov - metal, crotales, percussion, balafon, daiko, festival
drum, [d]ronins, clown horn, recitation, voice
Bob Moores - space trumpet, Blunderbuss guitar, electronics, bamboo
flute, game calls, clown horn, slide whistle, metal, crank siren, toys,
voice
Drew Wesley - guitar, electronics, clown horn, voice
Joe Hartigan - metal, crotales, daiko, balafon, percussion, clown horn,
voice
Notes by PEK
Evil Clown has been around since the 90s... so we were highly amused that Evil Clowns were so in the news this fall... Yuri and I spent several months discussing a piece about the Klown Panik from Sparkles' point of view...
The result is a set with more organization than usual... I captured about 50 samples from the news broadcasts on the Panik from the web and stuck them in the Mekaniks Ableton Grid... Also did some premixes with the samples... We printed off a dozen or so web articles to use for the recitation parts...
Here at Evil Clown we are generally interested in abstraction - what kind of sounds can we make / what kind of sonorities can we make and how do we transform/morph it...
I think this is a first: An Evil Clown session that actually is about something!! I thank the Klown Panik for giving us a relevant subject matter for this improvisation...
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 5:
The President has Not Yet Been Briefed...
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 1:
While It Is Not Illegal to Dress as a Klown...
Composer and multi-instrumentalist, PEK, set his sights on something bigger with the Leap of Faith Orchestra's Supernovae. The previous incarnation of the LOFO expands from the fifteen musicians on The Expanding Universe (Evil Clown, 2016) to twenty-one players on this new outing. Another noteworthy element of this project is PEK's use of Frame Notation where the score is seen in written descriptions and straight-forward symbols within Duration Bars. The system provides the musicians with immediate understanding of their own parts and the higher-level arrangement of the music.
Supernovae consists of a single track composition running just under eighty minutes. The digital download includes a bonus track. Though the extended piece is not broken out by formal movements, there are clear delineations within the score. PEK's ensemble—not surprisingly—includes enough non-traditional and weird instruments to compete with a Dr. Seuss orchestra. Though they are not playing in a vacuum, that group of instruments dominates the first ten minutes before strings and reeds make themselves more clearly heard. Forty-five minutes in, we have the first case of prolonged melody, darker and more subdued than the overall tone of the first half.
Supernovae gives way to free improvisation overlaying the melody. Eventually the piece introduces a brilliant percussion passage before it reintroduces the non-traditional music elements, but here in a more refined manner. As with all of PEK's compositions, there is—behind the scenes—a painstaking amount of organization that is not always evident in the listening. That is part of the beauty of this album; the non-traditional approach to instrumentation and the lack of adherence to Western structure continue to make the various iterations of Leap of Faith consistently interesting. And interesting look at the written score can be viewed at http://www.evilclown.rocks/lofo-supernovae-score.html.
Review by Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
MEKANIKS - The Great Klown Panic of 2016 (Evil Clown 9126; USA) Mekaniks are a quintet with just two Leap of Faith offshoot with just two original Leap of Faith members: PEK on assorted reeds, samples, melodica, electronics, aquasonic, foghorn, gushing, etc. and Yui Zbitnov on percussion, metals, balafon and drums. The other three members are occasional Leap of Faith participants: Bob Moores on space trumpet, guitar, electronics & metal, Drew Wesley on guitar & electronics and Joe Hartigan on metals, balafon and percussion. On the back cover of this disc, four of the five members are wearing clown red noses with a couple in frizzy wigs.
The pictures appear to be taken at the session for this disc so perhaps this was Pek’s way of getting the ensemble in the Evil Clown spirit?!? The music was recorded in Pek’s studio in December of last year (2016). This session begins with a scary, hoarse-voiced intro shouting about being a clown with equally disorienting music erupting under the voice: eerie cymbals, metal percussion, layers of disturbing voices, almost too much to deal with. In recent times, daily life has been filled with a series of bad news, alternative facts (or lies) and things too depressing to mention.This disc often captures that same spirit of not being sure if we are living in a someone’s nightmare or not. Sometimes, it feels good to whistle while we walk past the graveyard where the evil ghosts are lurking. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 4:
...Sightings in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland...
Photo Still from Video, tweak by PEK
Photo Still from Video, tweak by PEK
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 2:
The State of Klown Anxiety Is So High...
Mekaniks - The Great Klown Panik of 2016
Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA
17 December 2016
The Full Video
Photos by Raffi
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 7:
Let's Get Serious About Klowns...
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 3:
Klown Hysteria Sweeps the Nation...
Audio CD Evil Clown 9126
Mekaniks - The Great Klown Panik of 2016
Evil Clown Headquarters - Waltham MA
10 December 2016
streaming, downloads and CD mail Order
Mayhem of the Klowns- 1:17:10
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 8:
Fake Assertions of Dangerous Klowns Are Crimes...
Photo Still from Video, tweak by PEK
The Vocal Section Excerpts...
Mayhem of the Klowns - Chorus 6:
Just a Few Examples....
Photo Still from Video, tweak by PEK
On Metal Chaos Ensemble: "... using unique strategies to yield densely active and eerily surreal music, an incredible excursion through experimental improvisation." - Squidco website staff
Evil Clown