Evil Clown mastermind David Peck (PEK) in a double album of solo work, 1st pure solo, then in a long work accompanied by his own prepared mixes, using clarinets, saxophones, English horn, goat horn, tarota, bamboo, Chistmas & alto flutes, slide whistles, sheng, Melodica, Akai Wind controller, moog subsequent, gongs, brontosaurus & tank bells, Englephone, and delay.
Format: 2 CDS Condition: New Released: 2019 Country: USA Packaging: Digipack Recorded at Evil Clown Headquarters, in Waltham, Massachusetts, on June12, 15 and 30, 2019.
1. Wave like Aspects of Particle Phenomena (gong) 1:24
2. Ring Singularities (wood flute) 7:45
3. Cosmic String Loop (English horn) 6:10
4. Geometry of Space (clarinet) 11:59
5. Spin Foam (3 slide whistles) 4:14
6. Closed Loops of Force (goat horn) 3:30
7. Quanta of Space (sheng) 9:00
8. Probability Amplitudes (alto saxophone) 9:12
9. Equations of motion (Christmas flute) 4:29
10. Intractability (tenor saxophone) 9:16
11. Spacetime intervals (alto flute) 5:55
12. Ring singularities reprise (wood flute) 1:48
13. Particle like aspects of wave phenomena (gong) 1:20
CD2
1. Curvature Of Space 1:18:22
sample the album:
descriptions, reviews, &c.
"Occasionally there is a break in the Evil Clown calendar and I have a little time for a solo session. In the 90s, I did solo performances occasionally - which presented several challenges. I like to work in a long form with lots of instrument changes, so I came up with several tricks for rapidly changing horns while continuing the improvisation...
Recently, I have been using the Ableton software to create electronic mixes which we use in several of the bands as an accompaniment track. In performance, I ride the fader from off to very present, but most of the time more to the background. Raw samples are taken from the Evil Clown Catalog and also specially recorded at Evil Clown Headquarters with instruments drawn from the Evil Clown arsenal. I then use Adobe Audition to process the samples and finally Ableton to assemble a timeline and create a mix. Several of my solo records have used these mixes. The accompaniment track neatly solves the problem of transitioning instruments.
After several years of this process, I have a lot of mixes that can be blended together in various ways. So, for most sessions that use an Ableton Mix I record a few new samples, or sample from recent shows by the various Evil Clown Ensembles and combine those samples with some from the Library. For this set, Open and Closed Universes, I decided to generate a large new set of samples and not use any from the library. I started by recording a bunch of short solos (3 to 15 minutes) with digital delay. 13 of these short solos on wind instruments comprise disc 1 of this release, but I also recorded some longer pieces with my mallet controller and the Moog Subsequent and the newly arrived Prophet. I grabbed Yuri's solo from the Englephone demo reel, and a few sections from LOFO - The Photon Epoch.
I made new multi-layered complex mixes with my usual methods of these Sonority Sets: Synths, Sheng, Horns, Gongs, Flutes, Bells. Each of these is a timbre set comprised of layers of similar sounds which have undergone transformations of pitch and duration. The mixes are typically about 40 minutes each.
Then, I planned out the basic elements of the Ableton composition including opening and closing sections. In Ableton, I made a track for each of the timbre sets and then did a real time mix for just under 80 minutes, blending them, featuring one or another, or rapidly transforming the sonority.
Finally, I took this final complex mix, and a few simpler ones and created one last Ableton file which I used for the performance, mixing this mix and the simpler ones in real time while playing a bunch of different instruments over the course of the CD length work. This process is the most involved one that I have used to date for one of these solo CDs, but the prepared mixes give me a great deal of real-time control within the scope of my planning to sculpt soundscape accompaniments of varying sonority and density.
I really liked the shorter improvisations recorded each on a single instrument with delay, and so I decided that I would present a 2 CD package, with a selection of these sample pieces on Disc 1 and the solo with Ableton accompaniment on Disc 2."-Liner Notes by PEK