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 ten years has been one of the most prolific Evil Clown ensembles. We have produced over 60 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.

Over time MCE morphed into been a recurring sextet unit with most of the sessions having 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.  This format of the band produced 20 or so albums featuring spoken word recitations along with horns, spacey electronics, metal percussion instruments and rock leaning drums and bass.  The spoken word element provides an entry point for audience who might otherwise not find one in such abstract music.

We are now moving into a new transition.  Bob Moores, who has been a regular of this format since it started, and who plays space trumpet, guitar and electronics has moved to Maine, about 3 hours away.  He will still join some Evil Clown sets, but not likely many MCE since he will come down on weekends, and we do MCE on Mondays.  Steve Niemitz, who took over the drum chair from Yuri for the last 3 or 4 years, is going to be training to be an EMT this year and will withdraw at least for a while.  He makes his last MCE appearance on this set. 

For Ephemerol, I scheduled the set on Memorial Day so we could play earlier in the evening on a Monday.  I was able to get Bob down from Maine and also Eric Woods, our longest running analog synth specialist, both on the same set for the first time in a while.  Eric has been hard to book lately since his mother-in-law who helps with childcare is frequently not around.  Anyway, we also had Mike Gruen on the electric bass – this is 4 of the 6 people from the recurring unit of the last 5 years or so…  We also had John Fugarino on brass instruments to round out the horn section.  Jared Seabrook, an excellent drummer, Cyrus Shaoul, a relative newbie on synthesis, and Ian Schwartz, who would have made his first appearance at Evil Clown headquarters were all unable to make the set for one reason or another.

Ordinarily, MCE is a rock-oriented ensemble which includes a drummer.  Mike is a great rock groove bass player and MCE is the only Evil Clown ensemble which regularly goes into hard groove territory.  So, a drummerless MCE session is a bit different than usual, but we were definitely up to the task! 

One thing about pure improvisation as compared to other styles of music is that it is much more tolerant of changes in personnel.  An improvisation is a solution to an aesthetic problem posed by the performers and the resources available, so a change in these inputs changes the problem, but that only means a different solution is achieved.  The only question here is, do these changes take us far enough away from the aesthetic intent of Metal Chaos Ensemble that a change of the ensemble name is appropriate for this performance? 

It will be interesting to see how our solutions to this aesthetic problem evolve over time as we adjust to a different group of performers, and whether I end up with a stable unit again or it works more like the other Evil Clown Ensembles which have a core unit and various guests for different sessions.

I’m super happy with this album and I bet you like it too…

PEK – 5/28/2025