Squidco Blurb

An offshoot of the Metal Chaos Ensemble featuring three of the core members–PEK on reeds, winds and the Evil Clown arsenal of percussion, Eric Woods on analog synth, and Bob Moores on space trumpet, guitar, and electronics, joined by guest Mike Gruen on electric bass, using a new SoundCraft mixer allowing advanced real-time signal processing from Joel Simches.

Squidco Staff

Liner Notes by PEK

The pandemic forced me to focus on solo works for its duration.  It was fun to explore the world of overdubbing and multichannel recording for a year or so, but I am more than ready to resume ensemble playing.  When the hammer came down in March of 2020, Evil Clown had some great momentum recording a number of great projects in a few short months:  Leap of Faith had just recorded Principles of an Open Future for Relative Pitch, Metal Chaos Ensemble had just recorded The Riddle of Steel, Turbulence had just recorded Friction Coefficients, and new ensemble Expanse had just recorded Main Sequence.  All of these projects would have made great music during the last year.  Now that we are coming back to a more normal world and I have started LIVESTREAMING shows from Evil Clown Headquarters, all of these projects are picking up again.

Another new project that was conceived at this time was Simulacrum.  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.  Even without the drums, this set tilts more in the noise direction than typical of Metal Chaos Ensemble.

This set was originally scheduled to be Metal Chaos Ensemble with all six regular members plus Joel signed up.  A few days before the set I heard from Steve Niemitz (drums) that he was having car trouble and wouldn’t be able to make the trek from western Mass…  Then Mike Caglianone (saxes) came down with a cold and wouldn’t be able to make it either.  Generally, I never cancel anything here at Evil Clown, we just roll with the punches, so this set changed from MCE to Simulacrum…

The last Simulacrum set, Metamorphoses, featured the core trio with guest Albey OnBass.  This one is the core trio with guest Mike Gruen.  Both performed on electric bass and both are excellent players, but their styles are very different.  So, despite the instrumentation being similar between the two performances, the role of the bass is very different between the two sessions.

I’m in the early stages of retooling my house to make the studio far more professional and regain some of the living space.  For now, I’m acquiring new equipment and setting it up in the old space so that when the construction is going on next summer, we know the new board and the other new associated gear for planning purposes.  Anyway, the new board is a 48 channel 8 bus SoundCraft, which is an order of magnitude better than the Mackies which I have used for the last few decades.  Joel has helped me to assemble the rig and given me needed advice on what to acquire and how to configure it all.  Joel is my house engineer who records more complicated sessions that have a mix of acoustic and electronic instrumentation for the larger ensembles, and he is tickled pink with the new set-up (especially all his options for signal processing).

So, Phantasmagoria ended up being a quartet with the core trio + Mike G and Joel in the driver’s seat at the new board!!  I like this set and I bet you will too.

PEK Out – 12/4/2021