Squidco Blurb

A working project of the Boston-based Evil Clown collective, Metal Chaos Ensemble explores chaotic rhythms on metallic instruments, in this live-streamed performance from 2022 as a quintet with strong jazz influences, from David Peck on reeds and percussion, Bob Moores on trumpet & keys, Michael Caglianone on sax, Albey onBass on bass, and Steve Niemitz on drums & percussion.

Project Wildfire:

Metal Chaos Ensemble

Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham MA – 10 March 2022

1) Project Wildfire – 1:10:25

PEK – clarinet, contralto & contrabass clarinets, alto, & tenor saxophones, musette, bawu, melodica, novation peak, moog subsequent, syntrix, prophet, Linnstrument controllers, lfo synths, Theremin with moogerfooger, daxophone, [d]ronin, spring & chime rod boxes, electric chimes, 17 string bass, brontosaurus bell, gongs, plate gong, Tibetan bowls, almglocken, crotales, glockenspiel, orchestral chimes, wood blocks, temple blocks, narration

Bob Moores – Trumpet with Zoom AX effects, “Junkyard Dog” electric guitar with effects, MainStage on MacBook Air with full midi keyboard, Audiokit Synth One and DroneLab on iPad mini, kracklebox, Indian hand chimes & bell, chime rod boxes

Michael Caglianone – soprano, alto & tenor saxophones, xylophone, plate gong

Albey onBass – bass guitar, crotales, glockenspeil

Steve Niemitz – chaos kit, gong, chime rod & spring boxes, [d]ronin, crotales, glockenspiel

Joel Simches – real time signal processing and live to 2-track mix

Bandcamp | Squidco | YouTube | Soundcloud

Liner Notes by PEK

Metal Chaos Ensemble was formed in early 2015 by PEK and Yuri Zbitnov as a working project to explore chaotic rhythms on metallic instruments. I had started to amass the Evil Clown Arsenal of percussion, electronic and wind instruments and we needed a workshop to develop this universe of sounds for the Leap of Faith Orchestra. It was immediately obvious that Metal Chaos Ensemble had a sound to itself and over the last seven years has been one of the most prolific Evil Clown ensembles. We have produced over 50 albums covering a wide range of sonority sets, but always with the presence of gongs, chimes, glockenspiel, Tibetan bowls and many other metallic sounds and the horns of PEK.

Since the pandemic has let up, we have started to do LIVESTREAMING sessions from Evil Clown Headquarters to YouTube… This set was initially meant to be the stable sextet edition of MCE which nowadays is made up of PEK on woodwinds and other, Bob Moores on trumpet and electronics, Michael Caglianone on saxes, Eric Woods on analog electronics, Mike Gruen on bass guitar, and Steve Niemitz on the Chaos Kit. A week or so before the set, I heard from Eric that he had a new conflict and couldn’t make the set, and then the day before, I heard from Mike Gruen that his kids were sick, and he could not make it either.

Generally, I don’t often cancel any Evil Clown session due to conflicts like these, since all the bands are highly modular and not strictly dependent on a specific set of musicians. Sometimes I do change the name of the Ensemble and the planned Album Title if the available players no longer match the general description for a particular band. We did have an MCE session scheduled in December 2022 for Project Wildfire, but Steve had his car in the shop. The current sextet MCE ensemble needs a drummer, so the set was repurposed to a Simulacrum performance and released as Phantasmagoria. Project Wildfire was postponed and eventually rescheduled to yesterday.

When Yuri withdrew from Evil Clown a few years back, I was worried that the MCE format would not survive his departure. I have found, however, that the strength of the concept and the development that happened up until that time has meant that the MCE concept can continue in a new way. Anyway, I called on Albey onBass to sub for Mike Gruen for this set and we recorded it as a quintet. This set leans more in the jazz direction than usual since Steve is more of a jazz style drummer than Yuri and Albey is a more jazz style bassist than Mike: Different, but still clearly Metal Chaos Ensemble…

I’m super happy with this album and I bet you like it too…

PEK – 3/11/2022