Excerpt from PEK Liner Notes

“…The resulting performance is an excellent example of the broad palette concept showing radical transformations across varied sonorities over the length of the work…”

Bruce Lee Gallanter Review, Downtown Music Gallery

Leap of Faith is the core duet of the Leap of Faith Orchestra (LOFO) comprised of PEK on clarinets, saxophones, double reeds & 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 (now over 150) feature the various 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.

One interesting thing that happens over time here at Evil Clown is recurring patterns of guest members of ensembles as they develop over time.  Some players tend to be involved with a single ensemble and some are involved with several or many ensembles.  Leap of Faith now has over 150 albums varying in size from a PEK/Glynis duet to an orchestra of 24 musicians.  However, there have been a number of smaller units (between 3 and 5 musicians) that have reconvened for additional performances after a successful first session.  Sometimes what happens is the original unit is added to with a new player to make a slightly larger variation of the original effort.

This set, Emergent Spacetime, follows this pattern.  Eric Woods (analog synthesis) is an Evil Clown regular who is a core member of both Metal Chaos Ensemble and Simulacrum which are the bands that feature more electronics and rock elements than the other units.  He has, however, played numerous times with the Leap of Faith Orchestra sessions (both the fully improvised sets from the Third Life Studios session, and the scored performances by the full LOFO).  He has also performed on 5 Leap of Faith small unit sets including The Observed Present (2/15/2020) which was a trio with Glynis and me.  The other albums feature the 3 of us with various additional guests.

Jared Seabrook is an excellent drummer who has recently joined the roster.  He demonstrated excellent pure improvisation skills on his premier performance with Turbulence Orchestra – Finding the Loophole (4/13/2023).  When new players come in and show advanced listening skill enabling them to engage in pure ensemble play, putting the overall sonority first in the decision-making process, they are candidates for frequent participation in the world of Evil Clown.  Jared’s playing skillfully varies density and dynamics from very quiet to busy and loud with a mean dynamic which is quieter than most of the Evil Clown drummers.  This style of drumming is very effective in a LOF context, and immediately after his first set, I booked him to come into this much smaller and very different Leap of Faith recording.

The resulting performance is an excellent example of the broad palette concept showing radical transformations across varied sonorities of the length of the work.

I like this set and I bet you will too…

PEK out 6/8/2023