Evil Clown 9300
LIVESTREAMED to YouTube from 
Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA 
19 March 2022 .
Inversion – 1:10:14
. . PEK - Clarinet, contralto & contrabass clarinets, alto, tenor & bass saxophones, alto & bass flute, bass ocarinas, bawu, bass recorder, shenai, bass tromboon, [d]ronin, 17-string bass, novation peak, moog subsequent, prophet, lfo synths, Linnstrument controllers, chime rod boxes, spring boxes, gongs, plate gong, crotales, glockenspiel, orchestral castanets, crank siren, flex-a-tone
.
. Jared Holiday - soprano sax, clarinet, piccolo, flute & alto flute, 17-string bass, Englephone, crotales, glockenspiel, brontosaurus & tank bells. log drums, wood blocks, temple blocks .
. David Welans - flute, piccolo, dizi-boehm flute, log drums, almglocken, Englephone, crotales, glockenspiel, beer can .
. Dennis Livingston - flute, recorders, ocarinas, assorted bottles, crotales, glockenspiel, log drums .
. Bob Moores - trumpet, flugelhorn, wind siren, Tibetan hand chimes & bowls, almglocken, cow bells, balafon, log drums, wood blocks, temple blocks, clave, brontosaurus & tank bells, gong, Englephone, [d]ronin, spring & chime rod boxes, table, novation peak, moog subsequent, prophet, Linnstrument controllers .
. Eric Dahlman - trumpet, throat singing, Tibetan bowls, Antarctic flute, hulusi, bell .
. Duane Reed - baritone horn, bass trombone, wind siren, throat singing, balafon, log drums, wood blocks, temple blocks, crotales, glockenspiel, Tibetan bowls, almglocken, chimes, cow bells, 17-string bass, novation peak, moog subsequent, prophet, Linnstrument controllers

----Liner Notes by PEK
I formed Turbulence in 2015 as I started to assemble players for the Leap of Faith Orchestra. Turbulence, the extended horn section for the Orchestra (along with guests on other instruments), also records and performs as an independent unit. As if this writing in 2021, we have recorded over 30 albums on Evil Clown with greatly varied ensembles.  All the smaller Evil Clown bands are really more about a general approach, rather than a specific set of musicians.  A session gets credited to Turbulence when it is mostly horn players and the only musician on all of them is me. The sessions range from an early duet with Steve Norton and me (Vortex Generation Mechanisms) to a 5-horn band with bass and two percussionists (Encryption Schemes) to four albums by the side project Turbulence Doom Choir which feature myself, multiple tubas, percussion, electronics, and signal processing and many other configurations. 
.
Currently, the Evil Clown Roster has about 20 horn players.  When I schedule Turbulence sets, I put one on the weekend and one on a weeknight since some players can only do one or the other.  This is the first session of the second cycle of Turbulence sets since vaccines became available and I started having YouTube LiveStreaming sets at Evil Clown Headquarters.  Since so many players are available, I’m working on the problem of large ensemble improvisation with big groups of Evil Clown regulars mixed with some relative newbies…
.
I’m super happy with this session.  The regulars and the newer arrivals really played extremely well together, listening intently and exercising admirable restraint.  7 players is a large band for pure improvisation.  Generally speaking, as ensemble size increases, so increases the difficulty of making music which is well-formed and tight.  I’m very interested in the aesthetic problems of larger group pure improvisations.  My Broad Palate concept is a solution to this problem which works by introducing many different possible sonorities.  Over the duration of the work, the combination of instruments undergoes tremendous variation, leading to a sequence of very different movements.  Most of the players on Inversion play several horns, and also auxiliary percussion and the other instruments which are strewn all throughout the studio.
.
Anyway, I like this set and I bet you will too…
.
PEK – 3/20/2022

Inversion

Turbulence - Inversion

Evil Clown 9301
Lilypad, Cambridge MA 26 March 2022
 Spectral Sequences - 1:04:51
Spectral Sequences Encore (bonus Track) – 14:03

PEK - clarinet & contrabass clarinets, alto, tenor & bass saxophones, tarota, bass ocarina, bass tromboon, goat horn, melodica, gongs, Tibetan bowls & bells, almgocken, whistle  

Glynis Lomon - cello, aquasonic, voice 

Vance Provey - trumpet, flugelhorn 

Albey onBass - electric upright bass 

Nate McBride - double & electric basses 

Eric Rosenthal - drums

----Liner Notes by PEK
.
Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice.  The ensemble is based in Boston and dates back to the early 90s.  We utilize a huge arsenal of additional Evil Clown instruments to improvise long works featuring transformations across highly varied sonorities.   At times, the core unit has been a trio or even a quartet.  The longest running core unit was comprised of PEK, Glynis and drummer Yuri Zbitnov, who played for the last couple of years of the archival period and the first 5 years of the reboot starting in 2015.  The ensemble has always been highly modular, and our many recordings (well over 100) feature the core unit in dozens of configurations with a huge list of guests and occasionally as only the core unit with no guests.  Currently, the core unit is the duet of PEK and Lomon and we are regularly presenting LIVESTREAMs to YouTube from Evil Clown Headquarters with other guest performers.

Before the pandemic, I ran into a fellow named Alex Lemski who produces the Creative Music Series in the Boston area.  Turns out he’s been here doing that for more than 5 years and did it previously in Colorado for a dozen years or so.  He came to a Leap of Faith Orchestra & Sub-Units show at Third Life Studios a year or so before the pandemic and we connected.  Last fall we discussed Leap of Faith making an appearance on one of his bills and we selected a date in March 2022 for that show.

Around the same time, I did a set at Eric Zinman’s Studio 234 with Eric (piano), Steve Haynes (tp), Vance Provey (tp), Nate McBride (b) and Eric Rosenthal (d).  That performance was a lot of fun, and I immediately recruited Vance and Nate for Evil Clown projects.  Eric had appeared on several Leap of Faith Orchestra performance of my Frame Notation scores.  Anyway, I scheduled an Evil Clown Headquarters Livestreaming session for a quintet of Me, Glynis, Vance, Nate and Eric which was released as Meaning Arising.  Vance was not able to make this set ultimately, and I got Ellwood Epps to sub on trumpet.  At the end of this session, I asked these players if they would do the same quintet for the CMS show and they agreed.  Shortly after that I was talking with Albey onBass, who now is frequently in Boston as well as his New York haunts.  Albey agreed to join in on the performance giving us an amazing string section with Glynis on the cello and two bassists…

Ironically, a few days before the performance, Ellwood hurt his lip and had to withdraw…  Luckily Vance was available to sub and I had him signed up within a matter of hours after hearing from Ellwood.  The set was amazing and well attended thanks to the extensive publicity driven by Alex.   Look for more sessions in the future from this Leap of Faith Lineup but with both trumpet players.  I’m looking forward to this next set with three horns, three strings and percussion.
-	PEK 3/27/2022

Spectral Sequences

Leap Of Faith - Spectral Sequences 16bit

.. PEK - clarinet & contralto clarinets, sopranino, alto, & tenor,  bass flute, shenai, medieval horn, novation peak, moog subsequent, Linnstrumnet, prophet, LFO Synths, theremin, moogerfooger, daxophone, [d]ronin, spring & chime boxes, electric chimes, chimes, gongs, plate gong,  brontosaurus & tank bells, plate gong, Tibetan bowls, almglocken,  crotales, glockenspiel,  log drums, wood blocks, temple blocks 
.. Glynis Lomon - cello, aquasonic, voice 
.. Vance Provey - trumpet, crotales, glockenspiel, Tibetan bowls 
.. Michael Caglianone - soprano, alto & tenor saxophones 
.. Eric Woods - modular analog synthesis, Englephone 
.. Albey onBass - upright electric bass, log drums, brontosaurus bell, temple blocks, chimes, novation peak 
.. Joel Simches - live to 2-track recording, real time signal processing

----Liner Notes 
.
Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice.  The ensemble is based in Boston and dates back to the early 90s.  We utilize a huge arsenal of additional Evil Clown instruments to improvise long works featuring transformations across highly varied sonorities.   At times, the core unit has been a trio or even a quartet.  The longest running core unit was comprised of PEK, Glynis and drummer Yuri Zbitnov, who played for the last couple of years of the archival period and the first 5 years of the reboot starting in 2015.  The ensemble has always been highly modular, and our many recordings (well over 100) feature the core unit in dozens of configurations with a huge list of guests and occasionally as only the core unit with no guests.  
.
When a particular lineup for a Leap of Faith set works particularly well, we repeat that lineup.  One such lineup that has had 4 performances to date is a core trio of PEK, Glynis Lomon and Eric Woods on Modular Analog Synthesis.  The four prior releases are:  Undulations in the Spatial Field (1/15/22), Loops of Gravitational Force (w/ Reverend Grant Beale) (9/25/21), Lattice (w/ Steve Niemitz) (6/27/21), and The Observed Present (2/15/20).  
.
In the archival Leap of Faith period, both Glynis and I were mainly interested in improvisation in acoustic ensembles.  Occasionally, there would be some signal processing on acoustic instruments from someone in the ensemble, but mostly we played with strings, horns, percussion, piano, etc.   After the hiatus, when I restarted Evil Clown, I was interested in using a far broader pallet and more electronic instruments and signal processing gradually made their way into the process.  I had been looking for an analog synthesist when I ran into Eric at a show I was on with Greg Grinnell’s project, Mission Creep.  Eric knows the deep history of the origins of electronic music in the classical scene of the 50s and 60s in Europe.  Composers like Pierre Henry, Stockhausen and others revealed a whole new sound world which has been under development for over half a century.
Anyway, since that time Eric has been a core member of Metal Chaos Ensemble and has participated in many sessions by the other bands.  The first trio (The Observed Present) showed the potential of combining the Leap of Faith improvisation concept with a strong electronic presence, and the trio and quartet sets that followed confirmed it.
.
This session is a new extension of this trio with the string and horn sections expanded to make a sextet.  Relative newcomer to Evil Clown Vance Provey joins on trumpet while Evil Clown regular Michael Caglianone joins on saxophones.  The venerable Albey onBass joins on the upright electric bass.  Albey is now on over 20 of Evil Clown releases and I get him on as many sessions as I can…  Albey and Glynis together form a fabulous string section!!
.
This may be the best set yet by this variation of Leap of Faith…  I really like it, and I bet you will too…
-	PEK 4/10/2022

Quantum Jitters

Leap Of Faith - Quantum Jitters

Evil Clown 9304
LIVESTREAMED to YouTube from 
Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA 
20 April 2022 
.
Wind Shear – 1:10:55
.
. PEK - clarinet, contralto & contrabass clarinets, alto, tenor & bass saxophones, alto & bass flute, 5 hole Russian flute, tarota, ocarinas, bass tromboon, [d]ronin, novation peak, moog subsequent, prophet, Linnstrument controllers, syntrix, chime rod boxes, spring boxes, electric chimes,  gongs, plate gong, crotales, glockenspiel, orchestral castanets, Tibetan bowls & bells, balafon, voice
.
. Bonnie Kane - flute, tenor sax, electronics
.
. Michael Caglianone - soprano, alto & tenor saxophones, wood blocks, temple blocks, almglocken, brontosaurus & tank bells, concertina, crotales, glockenspiel, spring and chime rod boxes
.
. Dennis Livingston - flute, recorders, ocarinas, assorted bottles, log drums, wood blocks, cow bells, temple blocks, glockenspiel, spring & chime rod boxes 
.
. Bob Moores - trumpet, Tibetan bowls, almglocken, fog horn, balafon, [d]ronin, table, Englephone, spring & chime rod boxes, log drums, gong, [d]ronin, prophet, Linnstrument controllers, novation peak, moog subsequent, voice 
.
.  John Fugarino - trumpet, slide trumpet, trombone
.
. Duane Reed - baritone horn, wind & crank sirens, Tibetan bowls, balafon, log drums, almglocken, wood blocks, chime & spring boxes, crotales, Pringles can, crotales, glockenspiel, Englephone, novation peak, moog subsequent, Linnstrument controllers, voice
.  
.  John Loggia – drums, gong, rattles, bells, cow bells, bell tree, Tibetan bell, waterphone
.
.  Joel Simches – live to 2-track recording, real time signal processing

Wind Shear

Turbulence - Wind Shear

Chromatic Spectrum – 1:10:36
.
Evil Clown 9305
LIVESTREAMED from Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA
26 April 2021 
. - PEK - clarinet, contralto & contrabass clarinets, alto, tenor & bass saxophones, mussette, shenai, sheng,  bawu, bass flute, spring & chime boxes, electric chimes, chimes, flex-a-tone, fog horns, Englephone, almglocken, brontosaurus & tank bells, gongs, plate gong, Tibetan bells, crotales, glockenspiel, log drums, wood blocks, temple blocks. orchestral castanets, flex-a-tone
. - Eric Woods - analog synthesis, gong, cymbells, chimes, Englephone, cowbells, wood blocks, log drums, brontosaurus & tank bells .
- Michael Knoblach - frame drum, busy box drum, tank drum, enamel bowls,  devil chasers axatse, abacuses, African rattles, Fischer Price toys, sheep shears, slinky, wooden billiards triangle, tit-fer, bells, antique child rattles, sand blocks, horses-ass-a-phone, basket of rocks, spooky world noise makers, spinning toy, acme siren whistle, mortar & pestle, large American percussion riq with wooden zils, lobster pot, Atlantis gong
.
----Liner Notes by PEK
.
In March of 2020, just before the onset of the pandemic, I had a first session with a new percussionist, Michael Knoblach entitled Main Sequence…  Although Michael plays the drum set, in recent years he has been focused on unusual percussion.  This duet with the Evil Clown percussion arsenal along with instruments from Michael’s huge collection available enabled wonderful new sonority.  Michael plays at a quieter mean dynamic than is typical for Evil Clown ensembles.  Leap of Faith, in particular, has stretches of this quieter space in nearly every improvisation, but the mean dynamic is much louder.  It was very interesting to focus an entire set on my lower volume vocabulary.  
.
Now, after the vaccines have allowed Livestreaming sessions and occasional live performance to resume, Michael and I have done several more Expanse sets and a few Leap of Faith sets.  As with all the ongoing core projects, Expanse is modular and has different guests on different sets to make each session a distinct aesthetic problem.  Since the dynamic of Expanse is lower, we have done smaller ensembles, duets up to quintets…  This new trio edition brings in Evil Clown regular Eric Woods who plays analog synthesis in Metal Chaos Ensemble and Leap of Faith settings.  I spent a long time looking for an electronics guru who would fit well in a EAI setting.  There are good players around, but most synth people are pop culture oriented and not a good fit.
.
I was expecting this to be a great session and I was not disappointed.  It has a very different vibe than either my previous work with Michael or my previous work with Eric.  Not a surprise that the session is so different – the broad palette aesthetic concepts tend to produce widely different solutions, and this is a very unique combination of players and broad instrumentation.
.
Evil Clown will emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever, so stay tuned for several new releases per month from the various ensembles!!!
.
-	PEK, 27 April 2022

Chromatic Spectrum

Expanse - Chromatic Spectrumr

Evil Clown 9350
Evil Clown Headquarters – 23 May 2023 to 19 September 2023 . 

1. Gravity Probe B  (3:41) from Leap of Faith - Geodetic Drift (5/3/2023)
2. Subnuclear Forces (5:43) from Leap of Faith - The Origin of Mass (5/13/2023)
3. Representations (4:55) from Simulacrum - Mimesis (5/18/2023)
4. Grasp (5:03) from Expanse - Reach (5/30/2023)
5. Manifold of Events (5:14) from Leap of Faith - Emergent Spacetime (6/6/2023)
6. A Morbid Aversion to Dying (5:22) from Metal Chaos Ensemble - Insanity is Contagious (6/26/2023)
7. Extensionality (5:39) from Axioms - Extensions to Infinity (7/18/2023)
8. LSD Spiders Want my Lunch Money (5:29) from Expanse - Gamut (7/29/2023)
9. Limit (5:13) from Expanse - Extent (8/15/2023)
10. Polar Vortex (5:23) from Turbulence Orchestra - Jet Stream (8/22/2023)
11. Divination (5:29) from Leap of Faith - Scrying (9/1/2023)
12. Massless States (5:05) from Leap of Faith - Graviton Propagates (9/9/2023)
13. Breezy (5:24) from Turbulence Orchestra - Gust Loads (9/16/2023)
14. Atmospheric Phenomena (7:48) from Turbulence Orchestra - Gust Loads (9/16/2023)

08 Expanse - LSD Spiders Want My Lunch Money

Evil Clown 9355
Livestreamed to YouTube
Evil Clown Headquarters - Waltham MA 
2 November 2023

1)	A Great Python Spits Venomous Kerosene Upon the World - 1:10:10
2)	Conflagration – 5:14

. PEK - clarinet, contralto & contrabass clarinets, alto, tenor & bass saxophones, tarota, melodica, [d]ronin, 17 string bass, Tibetan bells and chimes, theremin with moogerfooger, LFO synth, gongs, plate gong, almglocken, crotales, glockenspiel, orchestral chimes, prophet, novation peak, moog subsequent, Linnstrument controllers, syntrx, ms-20, recitation
. Michael Caglianone - soprano, alto & tenor saxophones, clarinet, flute, melodica, hulusi, array mbira, spring & chime rod boxes, xylophone, balafon, orchestral anvils, almglocken
. Bob Moores - space trumpet, electric guitar with effects, MacBook Pro with 61-key keyboard using MainStage, MacBook Proc with 25-key keyboard using miniMoog D emulator, Korg Monotron Duo mini-synth, Synth-A-Sette mini-synth, nord stage 3
.  Eric Woods - analog synthesis, nord stage 3
.  Steve Niemitz - drums
.  Joel Simches - real time signal processing and live to 2-track mix
.
Liner Notes by PEK
Metal Chaos Ensemble was formed in early 2015 by PEK and Yuri Zbitnov as a working project to explore chaotic rhythms on metallic instruments.  I had started to amass the Evil Clown Arsenal of percussion, electronic and wind instruments and we needed a workshop to develop this universe of sounds for the Leap of Faith Orchestra.  It was immediately obvious that Metal Chaos Ensemble had a sound to itself and over the last eight years has been one of the most prolific Evil Clown ensembles.  We have produced over 50 albums covering a wide range of sonority sets, but always with the presence of gongs, chimes, glockenspiel, Tibetan bowls and many other metallic sounds and the horns of PEK.  
More recently, MCE has been a recurring sextet unit with most of the sessions having exactly the same six performers.  With drums and electric bass and electronics, this unit contains the most rock elements of any of the Evil Clown ensembles.  Since Yuri retired from Evil Clown, drummer Steve Niemitz has been holding down the drum chair.  He drives into Boston from Western Mass, so we don’t do quite as many sets as we did back in the day, but it tends to make them a bit special.

Each session at Evil Clown Headquarters poses an aesthetic problem for the ensemble to solve which is:  How to structure a concert length improvisation with the particular section through the Evil Clown Resources available to that set.  Consequently, we are easily able to continue with a performance despite possible surprises…  For A Great Python Spits Venomous Kerosene Upon the World, Mike Gruen was not able to make it, so we just rolled with it and performed as a quintet.  Mike was missed, but the performance is simply a solution to a slightly different section through the Evil Clown Universe of Sounds.  Without the bass, the overall character of the piece is a bit different from usual MCE set, but here at ECH it ain’t no thang…

I’m super happy with this album and I bet you like it too…
PEK – 11/3/2023

2 Conflagration

1 A Great Python Spits Venomous Kerosene Upon The World

Evil Clown 9369 
LIVESTREAMED to YouTube from 
Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA 
19 February 2024
.
Effects of Channeling - 1:09:52
Properties of the Crystal Lattice and its Perturbations – 6:09
. 
. PEK - clarinet & contrabass clarinets, alto & tenor saxophones, tarota, piccolo oboe, alto & bass flute, 5 hole wood flute, melodica, prophet, korg ms20, syntrx, novation peak, moog subsequent, Linnstrument controllers, theremin with moogerfooger, [d]ronin, 17 string bass, lfo percolator, array mbira, spring & chime rod boxes, gongs, brontosaurus & tank bells, cow bells, orchestral chimes, chimes, temple & wood blocks, log drums, danmo orchestral castanets, seed pod rattles, Tibetan bells, bowls & chimes, almglocken

. Michael Caglianone - soprano, alto & tenor saxophones, clarinet, flute, melodica, hulusi, tiny slide whistle, wind siren, lfo percolator, shakers, orchestral castanets, log drums, wood & temple blocks, cow bells, balafon,  xylophone  

. John Fugarino - trumpet, slide trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, nord stage 3, prophet, spring & chime rod boxes, crotales, glockenspiel, almglocken, orchestral anvils, gongs, plate gong, seed pod rattles, shakers, wood blocks, orchestral castanets 

. Bob Moores - space trumpet, flugelhorn, brontosaurus & tank bells, crotales, glockenspiel, moog subsequent, nord stage 3, novation peak, Linnstrument controllers, Englephone, gongs, orchestral chimes, lfo percolator, ratchet, shakers, orchestral castanets, log drums, wood & temple blocks, Tibetan bells & bowls 

. Scott Samenfeld - electric upright bass, melodica, shenai . Jim Lucchese - drums, gongs, brontosaurus & tank bells, log drums, wood & temple blocks, cowbells, almglocken, Tibetan bowls, balafon, xylophone, seed pod rattles, prophet   

. Joel Simches - Live to 2-track recording, real-time signal processing 
. Paul Brennan – camera
. Raffi - video mix

Turbulence 2) Properties Of The Crystal Lattice And Of Its Perturbations

Turbulence 1) Effects Of Channeling

Evil Clown 9401
118 Elliot St Gallery, Brattleboro VT
9 November 2024 

Disc 1:
Sub-Unit 1) Passionate Brouhaha – 14:33
Sub-Unit 2) Unbridled Ruckus – 14:31
Sub-Unit 3) Impassioned Hullabaloo – 14:22
Sub-Unit 4) Unrestrained Bedlam– 14:31
Sub-Unit 5) Unruly Kerfuffle – 14:18
Disc 2:
Orchestra 6) Tempestuous Hubbub – 1:00:39

PEK (1-6) - direction, clarinet & contralto clarinets, basset horn alto  & tenor saxophones, tarota, percussion, rubber chickens 

Bonnie Kane (1,6) - tenor saxophone, percussion, rubber chickens 

Michael Caglianone (2,6) - soprano, alto & tenor  saxophones, clarinet, percussion, rubber chickens 

Victor Signore (3,6) - soprano, alto & tenor saxophones, percussion, rubber chickens 

Cliff White (4,6) - saxophones, percussion, rubber chickens 

F (4,6) - tenor & baritone sax, percussion, rubber chickens 

Dennis Livingston (2,6) - flute, ocarinas, bottles, percussion, rubber chickens 

Eric Dahlman (1,6) - trumpet, overtone voice, percussion, rubber chickens 

Scott Moore (1,6) - trombone, voice, percussion, rubber chickens 

Vance Provey (3,5,6) - trumpet, percussion, rubber chickens 

John Fugarino (4,6) - trumpet, slide trumpet, flugelhorn, French horn trombone, valve trombone, percussion, rubber chickens 

Duane Reed (3,6)  - double bell euphonium, percussion, rubber chickens 

Kirk Isreal (1,6) - sousaphone, percussion, clown hammer 

Tor Snyder (5,6) - guitar, percussion, rubber chickens 

Glynis Lomon (4-6) - cello, voice, percussion, rubber chickens 

Scott Samenfeld (3.5.6) - bass, electric flute, percussion, rubber chickens 

Absence of Thought (2,6) - vibraphone, percussion, rubber chickens 

John Loggia (1,6) - drums, percussion, rubber chickens 

Dennis Warren (5,6) - drums, percussion, rubber chickens 

Stephan Brandstatter (2,6) - percussion, rubber chickens 

Drew Kovach (4,6) - percussion, rubber chickens 

Ben James (4,6) - drums, percussion, rubber chickens


6) Orchestra - Tempestuous Hubbub

Improviser on Woodwinds, Percussion and Electronics.  CEO of Evil Clown, Leader of Evil Clown projects:  Leap of Faith Orchestra, Leap of Faith, String Theory, Metal Chaos Ensemble and Turbulence

6) Orchestra - Tempestuous Hubbub

PEK (CEO of Evil Clown)

Related tracks