Liner Notes by PEK

Due to the stupid virus I’ve been doing a lot more PEK Solo projects than usual this year. To keep them different from each other they fall into several categories of virtual ensemble size and overall complexity. Some are long traditional solos with one PEK performing continuously on one or many instruments for the duration of the work and some are quartets of 4 PEKs overdubbing. The remaining are Orchestras of PEKs where many layers are combined, including some of the solos and quartets and some of the solos and quartets with digital processing. Only the final few tracks of these large works are performed continuously for the duration of the work. Also, some recent Metal Chaos Ensemble recordings are similar studio constructions with Yuri joining in for some of the materials prepared in advance and for the final tracks over the full duration.

For Ed’s Mom is a Quartet of PEKs intermediate mix for the next Orchestra of PEKs recording entitled Semantic Notions and/or the next Metal Chaos Ensemble studio construction work entitled Dante’s Inferno (both in their early stages). Since my albums are almost always single tracks of 70 to 80 minutes, I don’t produce many short pieces that you might consider a “single,” but some of these Quartet of PEKs pieces stand alone as complete works in addition to material prepared for sampling into another work. I am generally including some of these intermediate mixes as bonus download tracks for the completed full album, but here I have decided to make this one available as a single track.

I am known to have a very large collection of instruments. The purpose of the Evil Clown Arsenal is to create an extremely broad universe of sound available not only to myself, but also the other participants in the Evil Clown catalog. I have dozens of horns, tons of percussion, strings, electronic instruments and processing gear, and free-reed aerophones. In For Ed’s Mom, most of the instruments are free-reed aerophones (accordion, sheng, melodica, and chromatic harmonica).

Several times over the years, people have given me instruments for the Arsenal. My aunt Kathy gave me some nice wood flutes for Christmas a while back (which I credit as Christmas flute), Jim Warshauer (a LOFO member) gave me some game calls, and others have given the Arsenal similar interesting but inexpensive sound making devices.

Ed Taylor, a great friend from my day gig, recently gave me a really nice accordion which was owned by his mother who played it in church every week for many years. She passed 10 or 15 years ago after being retired from playing for 10 or 15 years prior. Despite the long stay in the case, the instrument is in good condition and nicely complements my other accordion which is a bit heavier and lower in pitch. Although I never met Ed’s mom, she sounds like a wonderful person, and when Ed decided that he wanted finally to move the instrument to a new home, he was concerned that it go somewhere where it would be used again with love. Instruments are deeply personal objects that bring with them long histories of sound when they change hands. Many times those histories are unknown to the new owner, but some times they are known and the spirit of the instrument survives in a new context. With those ideas in mind, this work, For Ed’s Mom, which includes her instrument performed by me on two of the four tracks, is dedicated to Ed’s Mom.

PEK – 9 November 2020