Liner Notes by PEK

Every once in a while, a new ensemble gets started at Evil Clown.  Sometimes the new unit has a particular aesthetic problem and an appropriate band name assigned defined in advance.  For example, Metal Chaos Ensemble started as a duet between me and Yuri Zbitnov as soon as we started to work with newly acquired metal instruments in 2015, and Turbulence was formed to feature groups of horn players – sometime as only horn players and sometimes with bass and drums.  Sometimes the new unit is spun off from an existing ensemble with some variation or different set of resources.  Simulacrum was spun off from Metal Chaos Ensemble to include even more electronic instrumentation and signal processing and to not require a drummer.

Sometimes the new unit comes about because new players join the roster and contribute to a session by an existing ensemble, and it is clear their contribution adds a distinctive voice to the Evil Clown palette which deserves a new band name.  Such is the case with Neurodivergent.  Count Robot, DNA Girl and Tim Mungenast played on two Expanse records in 2023 (Swathe in March and Gamut in July).  They bring an odd sensibility that involves improvised spoken word banter between the three of them and a more pop-culture oriented use of guitar, mandolin and electronics than is typical in Evil Clown ensembles.  For the third set featuring these three relative newbies, I rolled out the new band name, Neurodivergent, to explore combinations of their aesthetic as a group of players with a long history with various combinations of players from the Evil Clown Roster.  For the fourth set, Stigma, I added the AKA band name, The Wacky Banter Ensemble, to reflect the essential element of this unit which makes it distinct from the other Evil Clown Ensembles while solving the same basic aesthetic problems addressed by all the Evil Clown Ensembles.

With the aesthetic goals of this project fully established and having four performances under our belts, I again enlarged the scope of the ensemble.  I added double bassist Scott Samenfeld who has been a regular on Turbulence and Leap of Faith sets for the last few years and I added newbie Gabe Boyarin on laptop electronics.  The ensemble size for Monsters Keep Interrupting My Science is 9, so I called the band Neurodivergent Orchestra AKA The Wacky Banter Orchestra… This feels like a good size for this band.  Bass and drums, three horns, electronics and Wacky Banterers…  A nice balance of the aesthetic of Count Robot/DNA Girl/Tim and the Evil Clown aesthetic of the rest of us. 

I made one other change to my standard operating procedures…  I generally assign a title for the performance at the time I work up the poster during scheduling and when the performance happens, I adapt the poster into the CD packaging.  For the last couple of years, I’ve been recording a 5-minute shorty at the end of the soundcheck which is included on the CD, but is not part of the YouTube Livestream.  The improvised banter that occurs in this project suggested great titles for these short works, but I still used the concert title from the poster for the CD title and the main track on the CD.  For this set, I decided to advertise the show as Title TBD and pick the album title and the names of both pieces based on the improvised word content of the performance.  That will be my standard practice for this project moving forward.

The Evil Clown regulars and the Wacky Banter newbies all did a lot of instrument doubling beyond their core instruments on the auxiliary instruments always set up in the studio.  This is the key to upping the amount of transformation achieved in one of our concert length improvisations.  I spent a more time engaging in Wacky Banter myself than I have on the previous performances, so there are 5 banterers:   Count Robot, DNA Girl, Tim, Eric and me.

Anyway, we had a terrific Livestream performance.  I really like this set and I bet you do too…

PEK 9/21/2024