Liner Notes by PEK

Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, clarinets & flutes, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice.  The ensemble is based in Boston and dates back to the early 90s.  We utilize a huge arsenal of additional Evil Clown instruments to improvise long works featuring transformations across highly varied sonorities.   At times, the core unit has been a trio or even a quartet.  The longest running core unit was comprised of PEK, Glynis and drummer Yuri Zbitnov, who played for the last couple of years of the archival period and the first 5 years of the reboot starting in 2015.  The ensemble has always been highly modular, and our many recordings (well over 100) feature the core unit in dozens of configurations with a huge list of guests and occasionally as only the core unit with no guests.  Currently, the core unit is the duet of PEK and Lomon and we are regularly presenting LIVESTREAMs to YouTube from Evil Clown Headquarters with other guest performers.

Evil Clown records roughly 3 albums a month – mostly YouTube Livestreams like this set, but also some live performances.  Some players are hardcore regulars and appear in multiple ensembles with great frequency.  I generally consider a player to be a hardcore regular if they are on at least 10 sessions per year.  A second group of regulars is made up of players who have participated for years, but with fewer performances per year.  Guests are players who either are brand new or who do at most 2 or 3 sessions per year.

Many sets are made up of a combination of regulars and guests, although a fair number are regulars only.  The Leap of Faith septet for Crawling Into Consciousness is made up of 4 hardcore regulars (PEK, Glynis, Bob & John), and 3 ordinary regulars:  Scott has been on 15 performances in the last couple of years and is currently our most frequent bass player with appearances with Leap of Faith, Turbulence and Simulacrum, Jiaxin has been on 6 performances in the last couple of years with Leap of Faith and Expanse (She will be moving back to China at the end of the year and I think she will do 5 or 6 more sets with us before then), and Jared has appeared on 6 performances in the last couple of years by Leap of Faith, Turbulence and Neurodivergent.

So, this is a seasoned Leap of Faith Septet well familiar with the broad-palette improvisation technique we use at Evil Clown and which the Evil Clown Headquarters studio is set up for.  I especially look forward to playing with Jiaxin who plays the Chinese zither instrument called guzheng that adds a texture to the improvisations not available from any other members of the roster.  

Evil Clown Ensembles specialize in large format improvisation.  Most free improvisation ensembles are trios or perhaps quartets with relatively fixed instrumentation.  Most of our sets are sextet or larger with a lot of auxiliary instruments available to the musicians to broaden the palette in addition to the instruments specially doubled by each player.  When the ensemble is comprised of mostly regulars who have embraced the broad palette concept and make frequent instrument changes, the natural result is a continuous flow of movements through very different sonorities over the long duration of the work.

I really like this set, and I bet you will too…

PEK 9/15/2024