Liner Notes by PEK

In May of 2021, I opened Evil Clown Headquarters to other fully vaccinated musicians, and the first session of the new age was scheduled for the second set of the Expanse sound world.  Michael and I both enjoyed the auspicious first set right before the pandemic shut down and so the collaboration became an ongoing Evil Clown project, both as a duet for some sets and as a larger unit for others. 

Now in the Fall of 2024, Michael has played on dozens of Evil Clown sets, and we have logged 13 Expanse sessions of several different flavors.  One of those flavors is a more electronics leaning variety.  We did a trio with Eric Woods (analog synth) and another with Robin Amos (synth).  This set features a larger electronics section more typical of Simulacrum.  Initially, I had this down as a quartet with Michael and I with guests Robin Amos and Bob Moores (space trumpet, guitar & electronics). 

A while back I had invited a great double bassist, Tony Leva, to a different session.  Tony was an Evil Clown regular during the early part of the Contemporary Period between roughly 2016 and 2018 or so.  He appeared on roughly a dozen performances by Leap of Faith and String Theory including three of the scored performances for the Leap of Faith Orchestra.  He returned to graduate school at the Longy School of Music at that time and became a bit too busy to participate.  However, I kept him active in the list, and he had signed up eventually for a session a month or two back.  As is turned out, on the day of that set he cut his thumb badly enough that he had to go to the emergency room and of course had to withdraw.  Afterwards, we looked for another session already on the book that he could get in on and we landed on this one, so we grew the ensemble to quintet.

A month or so, Robin reached out and asked if I minded if he invited violinist Jonathan LaMaster to the session.  I’m always looking for good, qualified string players, and as it turns out Jonathan also performed on one of the Leap of Faith Orchestra scored performances.  Seems like a coincidence, but Jonathan played with Robin and at various times with our old main drummer Yuri Zbitnov and current percussionist Michael Knoblach in the Boston seminal post-rock band Cul-de-Sac back in the day (90s I think).  Yuri had invited Jonathan to the LOFO set in 2017.  Michael invited Robin to his first Expanse set a few years back, and now Robin has invited Jonathan back into the fold. 

The Boston improvisation scene is broad and deep – this is not the first time that new players have arrived from their previous associations with regulars currently in the Roster.  In fact, it is the most common way that we add new members, and this method has some distinct advantages over cold acquisitions:  More is known about the playing of the newbies and common improvisation experience previously exists between the new arrivals and one or more of the existing Roster.

Anyway, the combination of 4 contemporary regulars along with two guests from back in the day made a great sextet combining horns, strings, electronics and percussion.  Both Tony and Jonathan really enjoyed the broad palate improvisation experience unique to Evil Clown Headquarters and we are sure to see more of them in the future in this and other contexts…

I was expecting this to be a great session and I was not disappointed.   Stay tuned and enjoy this set!!!

• PEK, 30 July 2024