Squidco Blurb

Before initiating the live improvisation that makes up Complex & Real Dimensions, reedist and multi-instrumentalist David Peck built a foundation track including electro-acoustic instruments created by Tim Kaiser, particularly the loop-capable “Large Spring Box”, creating tone, timbre and interludes over which PEK passionately performs.

Liner Notes by PEK

Every once in a while, there is a break in the crazy schedule here at Evil Clown and I have some time to do a solo album.  Our grand olde pal, the Corona Virus has provided such a break in spades….  At the beginning of the 2020, it appeared that the year would be our busiest yet…  We did a bunch of albums in January, February and the first weeks of March, and then I was forced to cancel a bunch of wonderful performances scheduled for the months that followed.   So, I caught up all my old business:  web site, social media, distribution, and the other non-musical activity required to drive the enterprise.  Then I took a month off…  my biggest rest since I started up in 2015 after my long hiatus.  In mid-May I started up again, conceiving some new means of producing some of the enormous output normally achieved by Evil Clown.  In the Fall I did a huge series of solo works along with a few Metal Chaos Ensemble sets with Yuri and Mike Gruen.

Now entering the second calendar year to be effected by the Stupid Virus, I really miss playing with others…  For obvious reasons, I have been producing a lot more PEK Solo albums than I do typically.  I conceived a structural schema for producing solo works while we wait for the virus to be over.  As with larger ensemble Evil Clown sessions, the planning involves selecting sound resources from the massive Evil Clown Arsenal and setting up the studio with these instruments to allow rapid changes in instrumentation and therefore in sonority.  This system provides a framework to create solo works that are sufficiently different from each other that I can continue to produce new work at something close to my usual rate even while I can’t perform with others.

The PEK Solo albums fall into four categories:

1. One continuous track (no overdubbing) of PEK playing one or many instruments with or without signal processing.
2. One continuous track of PEK playing one or many instruments with a prerecorded mix of samples drawn from the Evil Clown Catalog or specially recorded at Evil Clown Headquarters.  Solo albums from before 2020 fall into the categories 1 & 2.
3. A Quartet of PEKs – Four continuous tracks of one PEK each playing many instruments on each pass.  Some of these use broad pallets and some use very focused pallets.
4. An Orchestra of PEKs – Many tracks of PEKs performing on a broad section of the Arsenal.

On the last album PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs – Strange Beauty Out of Chaos, I premiered recent additions to the Arsenal made my Tim Kaiser.  These are very cool electro-acoustic instruments which amplify sounds made on unusual materials like springs, steel rods, bowed cymbals, etc.  They fit really well with a few instruments from this timbre set that have been around in the Arsenal for a few years, the [d]ronin, the daxophone and the mpa 019.  These instruments are basically electric percussion and also go really well with the wood and metal sounds already available in the Arsenal.

For Strange Beauty, which was for a quartet of PEKs, I laid down two tracks with these instruments and percussion and then two tracks with these instruments and horns.  Recently, I’ve been using a loop station to build some accompaniment tracks in real time like in Decision Boundary.  Complex & Real Dimensions is a Category 2 PEK Solo…  I set up a long loop just before the main recording with electro-acoustic timber set and percussion.  One of the Tim Kaiser instruments, called Large Spring Box, has its own internal looper and I set up a short loop on this instrument.  These loops were prepared beforehand and not in real time, which is why I categorize this piece as Category 2.

I used the loops to create a texture bed under some of the horn solos, and as interludes along with new sounds from this Timbre Set and the percussion.  I also played the electro acoustic instruments without the loops or horns and the horns with no accompaniment sounds.  All of the decisions about the sounds used were made in real time during the performance unlike the Quartet of PEKs and Orchestra of PEKs sets which are studio constructions with overdubbing.  I’m super happy with this set and I bet you will like it too…

I expect that I will be able to resume the rapid schedule interrupted a year ago.  I have been in periodic communication with members of the various units, and we are all chompin’ at the bit!!  Stay tuned for a flood of new works by Leap of Faith, Metal Chaos Ensemble, Turbulence and other Evil Clown Ensembles starting up in May…

As usual, the chaos of the universe throws out problems which require our attention.   Expression must be expressed.  Music must be made.  The chaos of the universe demands it.

PEK – 4/11/21