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 collaboration became an ongoing Evil Clown project, both as a duet for some sets and as a larger unit for others.  As an ongoing project, it needed a permanent name, so after some thought I came up with Expanse which evokes space and restraint, the central idea behind this ensemble at its inception.

As is often the case as a new ensemble develops over time, the original scope of intent is deepened and broadened.  An Evil Clown session that is assigned to Expanse really is a set with Michael and me and others where it is not Leap of Faith, Turbulence, Metal Chaos Ensemble, or some other Evil Clown Ensemble.  The recordings have varied from acoustic duet to trios and various larger bands with electronics and other sounds.  Michael does frequently appear as the percussionist and sometimes drummer on performances by these other Evil Clown bands.   Last year we debuted a new variation, Expanse Percussion Edition, calling back to early Metal Chaos Ensemble performances.  In 2015, Yuri and I were seeking to explore the rapidly expanding sonority set of mostly metallic percussion that I was acquiring to broaden the palette available to the Leap of Faith Orchestra.  Many of the MCE sets in the first 3 years or so were me and Yuri with other drummers/percussionists from the LOFO together with some other horn players and electronic musicians.  Eventually Metal Chaos Ensemble morphed away from this format and became the more standard electro-acoustic sextet format that has been presented over the last 3 or 4 years.

The Percussion Edition follows up on the original idea of MCE with completely different performers and with a larger collections of membrane instruments to go with the metal instruments still in use… So, Sonorant Pandemonium is the third time out with this concept – this time with three horn players (Me, John Fugarino, and Hilary Noble – all doubling percussion and other instruments), 2 percussionists (doubling many instruments) and electric bass and for the first time Sergio on drum set.  It’s a different take on the general Evil Clown Aesthetic concept of broad palate performing concert length improvisations featuring dramatic transformations through many different sonorities.  With so many percussion specialists, there are more groove sections than ordinarily happen in Evil Clown ensemble performances, but there are also plenty of sections with chaotic rhythmic structures and lots of great textures from the horns, and doubling on electronics, electroacoustics and the extended percussion instruments available in the Evil Clown Headquarters studio.

I look for opportunities to build ensembles that bring different ideas into the Evil Clown Headquarters environment.  3 of these 7 players are new or relatively new to Evil Clown, and the combination of these strong outside players together with me, John and Michael make a very different and very interesting contribution to the ever-expanding Evil Clown Catalog.  Although Hilary, Andy & Sergio are from more straight-ahead backgrounds, they are all skilled players and the challenge of playing in a much more outside setting with us is fun for them.  It usually takes a few sets for new players with other kinds of performance experience to really get the idea of how we roll at Evil Clown Headquarters – what the musically language involves, the broad palate concept, etc.  I feel like this is the strongest performance yet by this large ensemble balanced on percussion and horns…

I was expecting this to be a great session, and I was not disappointed.

PEK, 21 January 2025