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. 

Attenuations was originally booked as Leap of Faith.  LOF is the flagship band at Evil Clown dating back to the early 90s with PEK and Glynis Lomon always participating and several other core members who came and went and many guests.  However, Glynis called in sick and a session is not credited to LOF without her.  Recording sessions are posed an aesthetic problem of how to improvise a concert length work with the given section through the total Evil Clown resources (players and instruments) available at that set.  When someone is unable to attend at the last second, it merely changes the section and poses a different problem which creates a different solution.

The Chinese players in the roster first appeared on two Expanse Meets the JMDE quartet sessions in 2021 and 2022.  Jimmy Zhao (who, as far as I can tell plays every Chinese folk instrument) is a member of the JMDE ensemble with Michael, and Michael brought that entire band to ECH.  After that, Jimmy brought in a bunch of other Chinese players for two sessions with the Leap of Faith Chinese Orchestra.  Two of those musicians, Jiaxin Wan (guzheng) and Ziyi Gao (pipa), were on the second LOFCO recording Jade Mirror of the Four Unknowns. 

These great players of Chinese string instruments are students attending Berklee.  When I have students in the roster who are strong players and a good fit, I get them on as many sessions as I can before they move from the area.  Jiaxin came in September for a Leap of Faith (Graviton Propagates) session and was great in the smaller setting.  After that I scheduled Attenuations and invited both Jiaxin and Ziyi.  Ziyi had not responded to the initial email, but she did accept the gig when I sent out my reminder a few days prior.

So, we were going to be a LOF septet edition balanced on strings and horns (3 each) plus drums like the recent Spooky Action at a Distance performed live at the Lilypad with a very different group.  Since Glynis called in sick, the performance was reassigned to Expanse as a sextet.  Since Chinese musicians were first introduced in an Expanse recording, it makes sense that this sextet performance with two excellent Chinese musicians would be assigned to Expanse.  Look for future LIVESTREAMs/recording sessions with these two, Jimmy and other Chinese musicians in both Leap of Faith and Expanse settings.

I was expecting this to be a great session and I was not disappointed despite the last second changes in line-up.

PEK, 5 November 2023