The Squid's Ear Magazine


Neurodivergent: Cosmic Collisions (Evil Clown)

A new ensemble emerging out of the Boston collective band Expanse with David Peck on reeds, percussion and innumerable instruments, Count Robot on voice & tapes, DNA Girl on guitars & mandolin, Tim Mungenast on guitar, and Michael Caglianone on reeds & winds, all adding percussion and electronics from the Evil Clown arsenal, exploring aspects of group improvisation.
 

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Personnel:



David Peck (PEK)-clarinet, contralto & contrabass clarinets, alto & tenor saxophones, tarota, bass flute, bass tromboon, game call through soma pipe,melodica, theremin with moogerfooger, syntrx, ms 20, moog subsequent, prophet, novation peak, Linnstrument controllers, almglocken, brontosaurus, & tank bells, Englephone, danmo, wood blocks, log drums, cow bells, gongs, plate gong, balafon, xylophone, orchestral chimes & anvils, bells, chimes, spring & chime rod boxes, [d]ronin, 17 string bass, crotales, glockenspiel, flex a tone, Tibetan bells, bowls and chimes, bells seed pod rattle

Michael Caglianone-soprano, alto & tenor saxophones, clarinet, flute, melodica, water bottle, Tibetan bowls & chimes, orchestral anvils, moog subsequent, novation peak, Linnstrument controllers, log drums

Eric Dahlman-flugelhorn, overtone singing, electronics, game call, tenor recorder stem, water bottle, spring & chime rod boxes, moog subsequent, novation peak, Linnstrument controllers, nord stage 3, 17 string bass, orchestral chimes, almglocken

Count Robot-voice, tape player, fx, genometer, novation peak, Linnstrument contoller, prophet, crotales, gong, spring & chime rod boxes

DNA GIrl-electirc 4 string mandloin, cigar box guitar, voice, effect pedals, crotales, gong, cowbells, wood blocks, log drums, chimes, moog subsequent, Linnstrument controller, xylophone, balafon

Tim Mungenast-electric guitar, voice, effects pedals, overtone singing, Tibetan bells, log drums, temple & wood blocks, gavel, novation peak, prophet, xylophone

Jim Lucchese-drums, Tibetan bowls, spring & chime rod boxes, seed pod rattle, brontosaurus & tank bells, cowbells, crotales, glockenspiel, gongs .

Joel Simches-live to 2 track recording, real time signal processing


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Label: Evil Clown
Catalog ID: 9363
Squidco Product Code: 34633

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: UK
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded at Evil Clown Headquarters, Waltham, MA on January 13, 2024

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Every once in a while, a new ensemble gets started at Evil Clown. Sometimes the new unit has a particular aesthetic problem and an appropriate band name assigned defined in advance. For example, Metal Chaos Ensemble started as a duet between me and Yuri Zbitnov as soon as we started to work with newly acquired metal instruments in 2015, and Turbulence was formed to feature groups of horn players-sometime as only horn players and sometimes with bass and drums. Sometimes the new unit is spun off from an existing ensemble with some variation or different set of resources. Simulacrum was spun off from Metal Chaos Ensemble to include even more electronic instrumentation and signal processing and to not require a drummer.

Sometimes the new unit comes about because new players join the roster and contribute to a session by an existing ensemble, and it is clear their contribution adds a distinctive voice to the Evil Clown palette which deserves a new band name. Such is the case with Neurodivergent. Count Robot, DNA Girl and Tim Mungenast played on two Expanse records in 2023 (Swathe in March and Gamut in July). They bring an odd sensibility that involves improvised spoken word banter between the three of them and a more pop-culture oriented use of guitar, mandolin and electronics than is typical in Evil Clown ensembles. For the third set featuring these three relative newbies, I'm rolling out the new band name, Neurodivergent, to explore combinations of their aesthetic as a group of players with a long history with various combinations of players from the Evil Clown Roster.

For this performance, Cosmic Collisions, I invited Eric Dahlman (tp) who was on the second set last year and who has been an Evil Clown regular for years. We were originally going to be a quintet. At Leap of Faith's performance (Spooky Action at a Distance) at the Lilypad in September 2023 which included Michael Caglianone (a core woodwind player who has been on many recordings by many Evil Clown Ensembles), a drummer friend of Michael's, Jim Lucchese, came to see the show. He and Michael go way back having played together in the band Zen Bastards for years. After the show we were talking, and I invited him to come do a session at Evil Clown Headquarters with Michael. Cosmic Collisions ended up being the show... So we ended up performing a septet instead of a quintet and Jim has officially joined the roster."-David Peck, from the liner notes


Artist Biographies

"PEK (aka David Peck) is a multi-instrument improviser who plays all kinds of instruments including saxophones, clarinets, double reeds, percussion, electronics and auxiliary sound making devices of all kinds.

PEK was born in 1964 and started playing clarinet and piano in elementary school. In 7th grade he started saxophones, first on alto, then switching to tenor in high school. He spent 10 years playing in rock bands and studying classical and jazz saxophone with Kurt Heisig in the San Jose CA area before moving to Boston in 1989 to attend Berklee where he studied performance with George Garzone. While Berklee was an excellent place to study harmony, voice training and other important aspects of a conventional formal music training course of study, it was not a very good environment for learning contemporary (or pure) improvisation (apart from his work with George). PEK did find, however, that Boston had a thriving improvisation scene, and it was here that he developed his mature pure improvisation language.

During the 90s, PEK performed with many notable improvisers including Masashi Harada, Glynis Lomon, William Parker, Laurence Cooke, Eric Zinman, Glenn Spearman, Raqib Hassan, Charlie Kohlhase, Steve Norton, Keith Hedger, Mark McGrain, Sydney Smart, Matt Samolis, Martha Ritchey, Larry Roland, Dennis Warren, Yuri Zbitnov, Craig Schildhauer, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Leslie Ross, Rob Bethel, Wayne Rogers, Eric Rosenthal, Taylor Ho Bynum, Tatsuya Nakatani, James Coleman, B'hob Rainey and George Garzone.

PEK met cellist Glynis Lomon when they played together in the Masashi Harada Sextet which existed between 1990 and 1992. They developed a deep musical connection which they continued following the MHS; first with the Leaping Water Trio for a few years and then with the first version of Leap of Faith in 1994. Leap of Faith was very active in Boston from that time until 2001 and went through a series of several core ensembles which always included both PEK and Glynis. Other key Leap of Faith core members during this period were Mark McGrain (trombone), Craig Schildhauer (double bass), Sydney Smart (drums), Yuri Zbitnov (drums) and James Coleman (theremin). Leap of Faith was always a very modular unit with constantly shifting personnel and many different guests. The early Leap of Faith period concluded in 2001 with a dual bill at an excellent room at MIT called Killian Hall with George Garzone's seminal trio the Fringe.

At this time, PEK changed careers for his day gig, returning to college for a computer science degree and beginning to work in the structural engineering industry at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. He became far too busy to continue the heavy music schedule, and preferring not to do music casually, he entered a long musically dormant period.

Flash forward to early 2014. PEK was a regular mail order customer of Downtown Music Gallery, the premiere specialty shop in Manhattan for free jazz, contemporary classical and other new music. While in New York on SGH business, he went down to DMG and had a lengthy conversation with proprietor Bruce Lee Gallanter about the early Leap of Faith period. He then sent Bruce a package of about 15 CD titles from the 90s and was pleasantly surprised when Bruce managed to sell nearly all of it. This public interest in the old catalog spurred PEK into getting back into performance. He reformed Leap of Faith with Glynis Lomon (cello, voice, aquasonic), Yuri Zbitnov (drums) and newcomer Steve Norton (clarinets and saxophones) and started to record and perform in early 2015.

Now having access to financial resources always absent in the early period, PEK began to accumulate a huge collection of instruments both for himself and also to expand the palate of Leap of Faith and the other projects soon to follow. He acquired new recording equipment and many new saxophones, clarinets, double reeds, metal and wooden percussion instruments, electronic instruments, signal processing equipment and other sound-making devices from many cultures. He revived his old record label, Evil Clown, and created reissues and new releases for much of the early period work by Leap of Faith and many of his other projects to sell at shows, DMG and the internet (around 100 archival titles).

The Arsenal of equipment has a grand purpose: To establish a large scale aesthetic problem to use the instruments to make long form broad palate improvisations with dramatic transformation and development. The very broad palate enables the long improvisations to evolve with very different movements and pronounced development over their length. PEK started the Leap of Faith Orchestra, a greatly expanded Leap of Faith, to achieve this purpose along with a number of smaller ensembles which are sub-units of the full orchestra including String Theory (focusing on orchestral strings), Metal Chaos Ensemble (focusing on metallic percussion), Turbulence (horn players), Mekaniks (electronics) and Chicxulub (space rock). In all, the Evil Clown roster includes over 40 musicians who contribute to one or more of the various projects, with PEK participating in all of them. Leap of Faith has also had some special guests like Steve Swell (trombone), Thomas Heberer (trumpet), Jeremiah Cymerman (clarinet) and Jim Hobbs (alto sax). The Leap of Faith Orchestra happens whenever several of these groups play together at the same time, or the ensemble exceeds 7 or 8 players. The Full Orchestra is a special case discussed below.

The current roster is comprised in part of: - Core Leap of Faith: PEK, Glynis Lomon, Yuri Zbitnov (Steve Norton has since left to go to Graduate School) - Percussion: Andria Nicodemou (vibes), Kevin Dacey (perc), Joe Hartigan (perc), Syd Smart (drums) - Strings: Jane Wang (cello), Clara Kebabian (violin), Tony Leva (bass), Mimi Rabson (violin), Kirsten Lamb (bass), Brendan Higgins (bass), Silvain Castellano (bass), Rob Bethel (cello), Kit Demos (bass), Matt Scutchfield (violin), Helen Sherrah-Davies (violin) - Piano: Eric Zinman, Peter Cassino, Emilio Gonzales - Horns: Dave Harris (tuba, trombone), Charlie Kohlhase (saxes), Bob Moores (trumpet), Sara Honeywell (trombone), Forbes Graham (trumpet), John Baylies (tuba), Dan O'Brien (woodwinds), Zack Bartolomei (woodwinds), Kat Dobbins (trombone), Steve Provizer (trumpet, baritone horn), Matt Samolis (flute) - Electronics: Greg Grinnell, Jason Adams (electric bass, electronics) - Guitar: Dru Wesely, Grant Beale, Chris Florio - Voice: Dei Xhrist

Evil Clown is documenting the ongoing solutions to this aesthetic challenge by creating limited CD editions and digital download albums of every performance and studio session by this array of ensembles. Interested audience can track the development of the grand scale project over the many releases - over 80 albums recorded and released so far between Jan of 2015 and March of 2017. All of the bands are highly modular, changing personnel and instrumentation with each meeting. The result is an enormous amount of music that shares the same fundamental improvisational language but differs from event to event greatly both in sonority (overall sound) and specific detail.

For the full Leap of Faith Orchestra, PEK composes a graphic notation score to guide the improvisation. The full Orchestra is comprised of roughly 20 players from the roster and performs twice a year. Two performances have occurred to date - The Expanding Universe in June of 2016 and Supernovae in November of 2016. Composition for Possible Universes is completed and the work will be performed on May 28, 2017 with another performance (score not yet begun) scheduled for November.

The scores use a device called Frame Notation where written English descriptions of the overall sonority desired and simple graphic symbols are given durations for each player on their part along with direction on when to play and when not to play. The directions are put in little boxes called frames which are arranged on a timeline and are simple enough to be immediately understood by the performers. Horizontal lines, called Duration Bars, extend across the page indicating when each Event (the Frame + the Duration Bar) begins and ends. An Event can be intended for the full ensemble, a defined group within the ensemble (for example, Metal Chaos Ensemble), a custom group (for example, Tubas), or an individual (for example, Andria Feature).

Parts are the full score annotated with Hiliters so that each player's instructions stand out. They can clearly see their individual instructions, but can also see the big picture, enabling far more knowledge about the pending actions of the rest of the ensemble than typical in pure improvisation. The players track the elapsed time on a very large sports clock. There is no melodic, harmonic or rhythmic information specified. This system allows PEK to compose detailed Ensemble Events without having to notate pitches or rhythms which would require significant rehearsal to accurately achieve."

-All About Jazz (https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/pek)
11/4/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

Michael Anthony Caglianone is an American sax player, producer, recording, mixing & mastering engineer, voice-over actor, co-founder of Studio 7A West. Based out of Boston, MA. He is known for the band Zen Bastards.

-Discogs (https://www.discogs.com/artist/378779-Michael-Caglianone)
11/4/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"- Performed with free jazz icon Hal Russell & his NRG Ensemble, Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, Travis Chandler Philharmonic, Auddity, Rakalam Bob Moses, DMJE quartet and DME trio. Dahlman has appeared on Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty's Discovery Channel soundtrack "Bridges".

- Music appears in the documentary film "The Bear Cult" (2015 Hyperion).

- Studied with Ingrid Monson, Dave Frank, Anthony Davis & John Luther Adams."

-Evil Clown (http://www.evilclown.rocks/bio-eric-dahlman.html)
11/4/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Count Robot was created to carve audio stupidity into art. Since being conjured into existence, Count has been a member of the following active music projects; Astro Al, Amplissima, and Static Apparitions. In another form Count has also contributed words and occasionally performed with Georgia space metal rockers, Spaceseed. The Count has well over 40 recordings to his credit.

What else can be said about this space buffoon? He's wanted for public onstages displays of moronics in Austin Texas, Cullman Alabama, Portland Maine, and New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Bromsgrove England, and Massachuestts."

-Evil Clown (https://www.evilclown.rocks/bio-count-robot.html)
11/4/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Tim Mungenast is a surrealist guitar shaman with an almost messianic sense of purpose.

He plays both mystical improv and 60s-flavored rock that flirts with psychosis, featuring odd chords and even odder lyrics (not to mention some really weird sounds). His improbably catchy songs often melt into loopy extended jams a la early Pink Floyd."

-Tim Mungenast Bandcamp (https://timmungenast.bandcamp.com/)
11/4/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Joel Simches: A multi-instrumentalist born 10/18/65, Joel Simches has been an active member of the Boston music scene for 35 years, played in well over 40 bands, traveling the world as a musician, audio engineer, tour manager and record producer. He has worked with a diverse array of bands including Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys, DeVotchKa, Bang Camaro, Dresden Dolls and Big Dipper, to name a few. He has also written for The Noise and Boston Soundcheck Magazine. Currently a staff engineer at Watch City Studios, Joel also plays in Count Zero, Joe Turner and the Seven Levels, Butterscott, Nisi Period, Didactics, Curious Ritual and is executive producer/talent booker of On The Town with Mikey Dee on WMFO."

-Evil Clown (http://www.giantevilclown.com/bio-joel-simches.html)
11/4/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Cosmic Collisions 1:10:05

2. Giant Monster Insurance 5:18

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Boston Area Improvisers
Octet Recordings
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

Search for other titles on the label:
Evil Clown.


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