Deep Archive (1984 to 1992)
The Fission Ensemble
Fission – The Safer Device
Excerpt From Liner Notes by PEK
“… Fission – The Safer Device was recorded on 8/18/1989 just weeks before I left California. It is a significant enlargement of scope of The Safety Device which had been recorded by just quartet in January. I spent months scribbling dots for voicings for a much bigger horn section and opened up the form so there would be a long solo section that repeated several times so there could be a lot of solos.…”
Notes by PEK
A few months back, I had a reunion session with Jim Smith and Dave Murray. We played in a band called the Fabulous Weiners in the early 80s. See the Evil Clown Album page for details and links: https://evilclown.rocks/fabulous-weiners/
I’ve been thinking a bit about those early times in my music career since they came, so I dug through my hard drives and found the one that has the digitized files of my early work from 84 to 92. Most of it is not well recorded, but there are some studio sessions and some things better recorded by Space on a 4-channel Reel to Reel recorder.
Fission – The Safer Device was recorded on 8/18/1989 just weeks before I left California. It is a significant enlargement of scope of The Safety Device which had been recorded by just quartet in January. I spent months scribbling dots for voicings for a much bigger horn section and opened up the form so there would be a long solo section that repeated several times so there could be a lot of solos.
I have no idea who all the players are. I did not keep great records back at this time like I do today, but there were at least a few additional horn players including a very good trumpet player… There was no rehearsal for this – I hired some unknown engineer to bring an 8-channel rig to my parent’s church. Everyone came, we ran through it a bit and then we recorded it, doing the solos afterwards as overdubs… The performance is a bit flawed on the dots since we did not have time to practice, but it has good energy and it represents a place that I thought I might be going towards at the time I moved East.
I don’t have video from this period, but I will post a static image with the Audio on YouTube for this and future posts from the Deep Archive.
PEK – 10/24/2026