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  ----Review by Darren Bergstein, Downtown Music Gallery
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  SIMULACRUM Semblance (Evil Clown 9297; US) Amongst the many outfits that Evil Clown impresario Dave PEK has hatched through his own singular dominion, the collective he dubs Simulacrum can really turn your ears inside out, and for this lot, that’s really saying something. Yes, every project PEK and his motley crew dabble in has overtones relatable to the other (some more horn-based, others more on the spacey tip) but for this latest Simulacrum, PEK, and his fellow multi- instrumentalists—Bob Moores, Albey OnBass, and Joel SImches—pull out all the stops, set the controls for the heart of the sun, and blast off to parts unknown that only a hybrid merger of Sun Ra, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, and Musica Elettronica Viva could devise. If those folks tweak your lobes a thing or two, then Semblance is surely your cuppa ummagumma. As is the standard M.O. for a typical Evil Clown joint, the quartet of red inaugurate a single improvised headstate across its 74-plus minute latitude. The piece churns ’n’ burns right out of the starting gate, with various fizzing, digital spasmodix, glorious lo-frequency static distortion, and synths a-plenty eventually giving way to PEK and Moores’s strangulated horn cries. Things burble, bubble, and come to a hot boil roughly forty minutes in, as PEK’s horns attempt to eviscerate the darkness, only they’re nearly buried in a quicksand of decommissioned tones and Simches’s expert signal processing, a textbook example of studio mind (tricks) over matter. At the fifty to fifty-four minute duration, a whole slew of percussive rain thunderbursts overhead and the quartet let loose a barrage of brash, magisterial synth and sequencer that would do any 70s hirsute krautrocker proud, augmented by a battalion of high trumpet that feels like the galactic empire’s entire fleet is gearing up for an interstellar assault bent massive. By the time the piece winds down and you can manage the odd breath, PEK and Co. have once again demonstrated that their performative genius remains epic— why remain tethered to stylistic boundaries when you can summarily invent your own? Breathtaking.
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  - Darren Bergstein, DMG
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  ----Liner Notes by PEK
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  A new project that was conceived just prior to the Virus shut things down is 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. Albey onBass (Balgochian) is an amazing bassist who played with Cecil Taylor in New York for over 10 years in the 00s and 10s. Albey and his wife Jane had moved to New Orleans and then New York, but have returned to the Boston area… Lucky us!! Albey has performed with a number of the Evil Clown ensembles, Leap of Faith, Leap of Faith Orchestra, Turbulence, Metal Chaos Ensemble, Simulacrum and Axioms (featuring the excellent poetry of Albey’s wife Jane SpokenWord).
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  This set was originally scheduled to be the core trio with Albey as the guest and Joel Simches at the mixer. The morning of the performance, I heard from Eric Woods that he had a nasty cold and would not be able to make the set. Since the ensembles are modular and somewhat difficult to schedule, I rarely ever cancel anything due to a scheduling issue of this kind. Instead of a quartet with Joel recording, I asked Joel to bring some of his tasty extra signal processing gadgets and perform his Perturbations role for this set.
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  Joel does 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’s missing analog synthesis.
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  I like this set and I bet you will too.
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  PEK Out – 2/19/2022 ... more
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