Liner Notes by PEK

I formed Turbulence in 2015 as I started to assemble players for the Leap of Faith Orchestra. Turbulence, the extended horn section for the Orchestra (along with guests on other instruments), also records and performs as an independent unit. As if this writing in 2024, we have recorded over 50 albums on Evil Clown with greatly varied ensembles.  All the smaller Evil Clown bands are really more about a general approach, rather than a specific set of musicians.  A session gets credited to Turbulence when it is mostly horn players and the only musician on all of them is me. The sessions range from an early duet with Steve Norton and me (Vortex Generation Mechanisms) to a 5-horn band with bass and two percussionists (Encryption Schemes) to four albums by the side project Turbulence Doom Choir which feature myself, multiple tubas, percussion, electronics, and signal processing and many other configurations.  

Nested Phenomena was originally on the books as an octet edition of Neurodivergent (AKA The Wacky Banter Ensemble).  It is the beginning of winter in New England and the cold and flu season is definitely here.  Count Robot and DNA Girl were sick and their pal Tim who travels in about 3 hours for these sets and stays at their house afterwards also decided not to come.  Here at Evil Clown, I almost never cancel anything, except in the case of extreme weather which makes travel and hauling equipment unsafe.  Sometimes, the show continues with the same Ensemble Name and Album Title.  In this case however, the 3 missing players are the key Wacky Banterers…  So, I repurposed the show into a Turbulence Set.

The remaining five players are three horns (me on reeds, and John Fugarino and Eric Dahlman on brass) bass and drums.  This is a fairly common configuration for Turbulence Ensembles – bass and drums with several or many horns.  John and Eric are frequent horn players in many of the Evil Clown bands, and Scott Samenfeld had been our most frequent bass player for the last few years.  Andy Korajczyk, is a relative newbie who has appeared twice on Expanse Percussion Edition performances on djembe and other percussion.  Here he makes his Evil Clown debut on drum set… 

An advantage of improvisation over more conventional music is that it does not rely on fixed instrumentation or material which needs to be learned in advance.  Strong improvisors, like the group assembled here, can make interesting music regardless of any last second changes to the lineup, so the last second change to a different unit was in no way a distraction for this performance.

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

PEK – 12/15/2024