Liner Notes by PEK

Every once in a while, a new Evil Clown Project emerges.  Mostly, the new ensembles are based on a small core group and a basic aesthetic problem which we solve in performance.  For example, Turbulence is the band with mostly horn players, but the ensemble makeup is different each performance. 

Perturbations is the newest Evil Clown Ensemble.  The core unit is PEK and Joel Simches…  Joel is the Evil Clown house engineer who comes to nearly all the recording sessions at Evil Clown Headquarters.  Some of the bands (for example, Metal Chaos Ensemble and Simulacrum) feature Joel’s real time signal processing in addition to his role as the recording engineer.  As we continue to assemble the equipment (new board and effects) for the updated studio, Joel’s options have increased and improved. 

Early last year (2022), I suggested to Joel that we form this new group where the signal processing takes on the role of an instrumentalist, significantly more complex than the general color and delay we use in the other ensembles.  For this band, Joel Perturbs the sounds created by me on horns, percussion, and electronics, creating a compound musical statement with the blended source sounds and the Perturbed sonority.  Shortly after that, in February, we recorded the first session for this project as a duet, producing Agitation.  As I expected, the result meets the requirement I have for a new Evil Clown project name which is to create a distinctive sound world from a particular section through Evil Clown’s broad palette…

The second Perturbations album, Deviations (18 August 2022), was meant originally to be a trio with Albey, me and Joel.  Albey is still travelling between NYC and the Boston area and sometimes his schedule changes and we need to adjust.  That happened for Deviations, and when Albey couldn’t make the set, I invited sax wizard Michael Caglianone to sub.  The set was very different than it would have been, but also excellent.  When considering the line up for the third set, Deviations of a System (17 April 2023), I wanted to bring in Albey, but I thought that I would have both Albey and Michael.

A quartet with 3 instrumentalists and Joel is the largest the ensemble should ever be for this band since there is enough sonic space for Joel to make a dramatic musical contribution.  So, moving forward this band will be a quartet or smaller.  For Equilibrium Disturbed, we stripped down to trio with Albey. Joel and me, and for the next set, That’s Where the Unknown is…, coming up on 11/14/2023, will be quartet again.

I am interested in the difficult aesthetic problem of larger improvisation ensembles due to the possibilities of rich sonorities and dramatic transformation.  In my long improvisation history, I have, however, performed with many small units, including solo.  Small improvisation units are easier in some ways, since there are fewer musical elements at any point in time that need to converge on each overall sonority.  The Perturbations recordings so far show that smaller ensemble improvisation with Joel’s Perturbations can provide broad palate improvisation every bit as deep and complex as what can be achieved by a bigger band.

With Joel at the controls of the signal processing, we essentially have real-time decision making as a performance unit, and we get the full-time attention of a master engineer on the electronic Perturbations of the instrumental expressions.  I really like this combination of live playing and over-the top signal processing.  Now having addressed this particular aesthetic problem 4 times, I can see that this will be an ongoing Evil Clown project with at least several LIVESTREAM’s per year.

I really like this performance and I bet you will too!!  Check it out…

PEK,  10/18/2023