Squidco Blurb

“… Joining the Boston duo Leap of Faith, the core duet of David Peck on reeds, percussion, the kitchen sink and everything in between, and Glynis Lomon on cello, aquasonic & voice, is bassist Scott Samenfeld from Turbulence Orchestra, drummer Jared Seabrook, and brass player John Fugarino, with Joel Simches capturing the recording and manipulating the stream in real time..…”

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.

Resonance Energy brings in bassist Scott Samenfeld to small format Leap of Faith. Scott has been an Evil Clown regular, appearing on 4 of the Turbulence Orchestra recordings where he brings a bit more of a jazz sensibility than we typically get from other bassists in the roster. He also is on a trio format Simulacrum session with me and Bob Moores. Most recently he was on the third session by the Leap of Faith Chinese Orchestra, Magic Squares. This was scheduled as a Leap of Faith recording and would have been the first time Scott played with Glynis, but at the last second Glynis had a family matter that prevented her from coming to the set. Ordinarily, I don’t credit a session to Leap of Faith unless Glynis is on the session, but in this case, the LOFCO is a well defined LOF variation and I did not want to spin it off to another band name just because of Glynis’ scheduling conflict.

I invited a new violinist, Aleksander Nivette, who also had a conflict, and tried to get a few other regulars to sub, but everyone I asked was already booked. I had some time in the last week to work on the space. I installed 10 new spot lights into the lighting system and moved one of the cameras to a ceiling mount which gives a good view of several hard to video areas in the space. So, this quintet of regular Leap of Faith players with one newbie had a great improvisation in a small format Leap of Faith configuration. There was a lot of space and attention to the quieter end of the dynamic spectrum and great development across a wide range of sonorities.

Anyway, I enjoyed this set, and I’m sure you will too!! Check it out.

• PEK 2/11/2024