Liner Notes by PEK

Simulacrum is an offshoot of Metal Chaos Ensemble that was conceived just prior to the Virus shutting things down.  The ensemble features 3 core members PEK on all my stuff, Eric Woods on analog synth, and Bob Moores on space trumpet, guitar, and electronics.  The basic idea of this band is to increase the amount of electronics, to keep the ancillary percussion and loose the drum set, along with PEK and Bob holding down the horn parts. 

I’ve been looking for more electronics geniuses for the last few years.  We’ve got Evil Clown regulars Eric Woods, who specializes in analog synthesis, plus Bob Moores who doubles trumpet, guitar & electronics plus me who also doubles.  We have Bonnie Kane who always puts electronic processing on her horn playing.  We have Bill T Miller who is a great player but is super busy and has only come twice.  In the past, I’ve courted a few others but never managed to get them to participate.  Recently, two new electronics gurus have signed on to the roster:  Robin Amos – an excellent player who was a founding member of the seminal 90s era Boston band Cul de Sac with which he toured in Europe a lot who knows and has played with many seminal European electronic musicians; and Faruq Hassan, a young player who is the son of Raqib Hassan who was a mentor of mine in the 90s.

I’ve been trying to get a Simulacrum set to happen with all 4 electronic specialists (Eric, Bob, Robin & Faruq).  I have not quite got there yet but Mechatronics (12/5/2023) had Robin, Bob & Faruq, and then Archetypes (2/1/2024) had Eric, Bob & Faruq.  Having a whole electronics section in the ensemble really brings out my original aesthetic intent for this ensemble.  Electronics performers are not uncommon in the world of improvisation, but they tend to do solo, electronics ensembles with only electronic instruments, or a single electronics performer with other non-electronic performers.  I think this Evil Clown concept of a fairly large improvisation unit with 3 or 4 acoustic players and 3 or 4 electronic improvisors is somewhat novel and is very interesting territory for aesthetic inquiry.

Mecanique Analytique was scheduled to include all 4 electronics specialists, but Faruq ending up not making it, so we ended up with Eric, Bob and Robin.  Michael Knoblach generally brings several boxes of exotic and conventional percussion to the sessions, but this time his van was completely full of stuff for his business selling percussion instruments and in order to avoid reconfiguring his van load we decided to use Evil Clown Arsenal instruments for his rig on this set.  I dug through the storage room and pulled out an Indian Festival Drum, a dumbek, and a frame drum and we added wood blocks, Tibetan bowls and some other instruments to his usual position seated on the floor.

So, Mecanique Analytique was another subtly different sextet edition of Simulacrum.  I’m super pleased with the way this project is developing.  Robin adds an amazing synthesizer perspective to the Evil Clown Aesthetic, and the combination of this amazing trio electronics section, the core Evil Clown horn voices of PEK, Bob and Michael Caglianone, and with Michael Knoblach’s amazing percussion voice produces IMHO the strongest Electro-Acoustic statement yet from Simulacrum.

Anyway, I like this set and I bet you will too.

PEK Out – 5/17/2024