On Metal Chaos Ensemble: "... using unique strategies to yield densely active and eerily surreal music, an incredible excursion through experimental improvisation." - Squidco website staff
Perturbations - Recordings
2
On Leap of Faith: "Alien yet familiar, bizarre yet completely fascinating. Expanding, contracting, erupting, settling down, always as one force..." - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
Evil Clown
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.
Audio CD Evil Clown 9296
Perturbations - Agitation
Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA
12 February 2022
bandcamp: streaming, downloads and CD mail Order
Agitation - 1:10:37
PEK - clarinet & contralto clarinets, sopranino, alto, tenor & bass saxophones, piccolo oboe, bass tromboon, 5 hole wood flute, ocarinas, sheng, wind siren, [d]ronin, 17 string bass, moog subsequent, novation peak, prophet, syntrix, lfo synths, Linnstrument, spring & chime boxes, electric chimes, chimes, gongs, Englephone, brontosaurus & tank bells, plate gong, almglocken, crotales, glockenspiel, cow bells, log drums, wood blocks, temple blocks, orchestral castanets, loop station, voice
Joel Simches - perturbations (lexicon reverb & vortex, roland SDE300, echoplex, warp factory, sony reverb, boss DD500 delay & rotary ensemble, TC electronics M300, ADA 2FX), live to 2 track mix
Audio CD Evil Clown 9320
Perturbations - Deviations
Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA
18 August 2022
bandcamp: streaming, downloads and CD mail Order
Deviations - 1:10:29
PEK - clarinet, alto, contralto & contrabass clarinets, sopranino, alto, & tenor saxophones, bass flute, bawu, 5 hole Russian flute, piccolo oboe, tarota, triple slide whistle, sheng, melodica, [d]ronin, spring & chime rod boxes, almglocken, crotales, cymbells, glockenspiel, gongs, plate gong, Englephone, maracas, moog subsequent, novation peak, prophet, syntrix, Linnstrument controlers, 17-string bass, crank siren
Michael Caglianone – soprano, alto, tenor & baritone saxophones, clarinet, tiny slide whistle, melodica, flute, gong, plate gong, melodica, [d]ronin, spring & chime rod boxes, 17-string bass, crank siren
Joel Simches - live to 2-track recording, perturbations (lexicon vortex & reverb, roland SDE3000, echoplex, electrix warp factory, TC electronic M300, aua lfx , digitech BPBU, digitech mosaic, boss flanger, korg SDD3000, boss dynamic wah)