Liner Notes by PEK

Simulacrum is a relativity new project that was conceived just prior to the Virus shut things down.  This new band is an offshoot of Metal Chaos Ensemble featuring 3 the 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.  Without the drums, this set tilts more in the noise direction than typical of Metal Chaos Ensemble.

This was the last Evil Clown set prior to the studio conversion project.  This is going to be a major upgrade with the studio and my home theater space changing position in the house, some new doors, and a wall being removed between two rooms which will be an isolated mixing room for the audio and video mixes.

I knew that Eric was going to be unavailable for this set, but I have a new analog synthesis prospect, Jeffrey Dragan, who I met at Bonnie Kane’s Friday Night Experiment in Western Mass a few months back.  Jeff played a very interesting set at that show with guitarist Federico Balducci who did was on an excellent Metal Chaos Ensemble set maybe 4 or 5 years ago.  Anyhow, as I usually do, when I see someone new perform and I can envision them in an Evil Clown setting, I try to get them involved.  So, this set was scheduled to meet Jeffrey’s availability on a Saturday right before the construction break.

I am always recruiting new players.  The Evil Clown concept is broad palate improvisation which means lots of instruments on each session, but also different guest musicians who join the core ensembles on the various session.  Eric Dahlman, is an Evil Clown regular on trumpet, having appeared on 20 albums by 4 Evil Clown bands over the last 5 or 6 years.  He has recommended a few excellent players who have joined the roster, most notably Michael Knoblach, who has performed on his exotic percussion and is a core member of the newish ensemble, Expanse.  Eric’s newest recommendation was bassist Scott Samenfeld.  Scott brought a very nice hollow-bodied upright electric bass with a very warm sound.  Scott’s playing is more jazzy than some of the bass players on the Evil Clown Roster, but he dug in and the result is kind of a Jazz Trio Edition of Simulacrum.

Since the ensembles are modular and somewhat difficult to schedule, I rarely ever cancel anything due to scheduling issues.  Despite the lack of Eric Woods and the new prospect Jeffrey Dragan in the electronics section and the more Jazz leaning ensemble, I decided to still assign this set to the Simulacrum Ensemble Name since there is still plenty of electronic sounds from Bob and me.  To increase the amount of electronics in the sound, I asked Joel to ramp up the amount of real-time signal processing.  For all the ensembles, whenever he is recording, the Perturbations credit occurs when the amount of processing on the sounds of the ensemble is at its maximum.  So, in effect, Joel is subbing on signal processing for Eric and Jeffrey’s missing analog synthesis.

I like this set and I bet you will too.

PEK Out – 9/25/2022