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Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family

by PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Review By Darren Bergstein, Downtown Music Gallery
    .
    PEK SOLO / A QUARTET OF PEKS Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family (Evil Clown 9253, USA) Perhaps isolationism is something of an inspirational motivator for Mr. Dave PEK. Or maybe it’s functioning as an auditory aphrodisiac of sorts? Either way, the man’s dogged work ethic and recorded catalog shows no signs of slowing down and being left to his own devices has apparently had a truly demonstrative effect. On yet another marathon session, the results of which inform this hour-plus entreé, PEK’s declamatory saxophone symphonies set both the mind and ear on ever-soaring higher flights of spiritualistic expression, footloose and fancy-free. PEK has described his approach to his horn playing as more cerebral rather than emotional in nature, but these overdubbed striations of breath and bluster don’t glibly achieve lift-off just from the ‘ol think tank. Like forebears Coltrane, McPhee, and other saxophonists to whom the act of blowing becomes heavenly genuflection, PEK’s categorization of his own playing as such does it something of a disservice. There might be a calculated modus operandi at play throughout, a sense and sensibility coloring his navigation through such seemingly impenetrable improvisational vectors, but the fact that these expansive, magma-hot soundflows never degenerate into cacophonic noteplay speaks volumes about the artist’s fleet control and smart, logical progressions. There is a suite-like structure here that finds PEK alternating quieter introspection with full-on interstellar overdrive; later sections find him playing a series of speedy, cascading vamps that send trembles out of the speaker cones and down your spine. Varying shades of tone, hue, and cry are splayed out in widening arcs, only to be finally corralled and parsed as we await the next motif with bated breath, PEK’s ‘quartet’ of respirations igniting the imagination with nothing less than awe.
    .
    - Darren Bergstein, DMG
    .
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    --- LINER NOTES BY PEK
    .
    Every once in a while, there is a break in the crazy schedule here at Evil Clown and I have some time to do a solo album. Our grand olde pal, the Corona Virus has provided such a break in spades…. At the beginning of the year, it appeared that the year would be our busiest yet… We did a bunch of albums in January, February and the first weeks of March, and then I was forced to cancel a bunch of wonderful performances scheduled for the months that followed. So, I caught up all my old business: web site, social media, distribution, and the other non-musical activity required to drive the enterprise. Then I took a month off… my biggest rest since I started up in 2015 after my long hiatus. In mid-May I started up again, conceiving some new means of producing some of the enormous output normally achieved by Evil Clown.
    .
    This is the sixth PEK Solo effort of 2020. There probably would be more, except I spent nearly two months on a massive studio construction, a structurally complex work involving many of my instruments, overdubbing and computer sound processing. I am super happy with Some Truths are Known – a four hour composition in 3 eighty minute movements for myself on 110 instruments… then I recorded The Strange Theory of Light & Matter, a much simpler session for 4 PEKs each playing through the entire duration on a bunch of different horns. Next was Pursuing the Ideal Limit of Inquiry for a single PEK on tenor sax alone… For Schematic Abstractions, I followed up on the quartet idea (from The Strange Theory of Light and Matter), but this time using a focused sonority set comprised of only the clarinets…
    .
    Jazz and improvisation have a long history of saxophone quartets. In fact, in the 80s, before I moved to from California to Boston to study with George Garzone at Berklee, I played the baritone sax parts for several years in the ragtime sax quartet lead by my long-time private teacher Kurt Heisig. This was good experience but was by far the most normal music I have ever performed. I always was a big fan of the Rova Sax Quartet and the World Sax Quartet among others who pushed the boundaries of the traditional approaches to sax quartet. In the last 5 1/2 years since the Evil Clown reboot, one of the ensembles has been Turbulence, which is generally comprised of horn players although some sets include the drums of Yuri Zbitnov. A great recent horns-only Turbulence set is Upheaval from 2019. This music is of course completely improvised and generally does not have a dominant jazz component, but we have recorded and released many performances.
    .
    This session, Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family, is a follow up to last month’s Schematic Abstractions for the Clarinet Family. The general approach here at Evil Clown is to leverage the huge arsenal of instruments and roster of musicians to create a huge variety of music with either very broad or very focused sound pallets with the goal of creating a great deal of unique improvised music with varied sonorities. These two albums focus all of the sounds down to a single sonority set, with all of the common members of the two instrument families played by me in 4 overdubbed tracks.
    .
    Until the stupid virus is over and more normal interactions are possible with other people, Evil Clown will continue to create new works using different methods which don’t involve many other players: PEK Solo projects, and a very select number of Leap of Faith or Metal Chaos Ensemble sets involving no more than 3 people. The PEK Solos with fall into 3 categories: Large Studio Construction/Compositions for lots of overdubbing PEKs on many instruments, small ensembles of PEKs like this quartet, and solos like Pursuing the Ideal Limit of Inquiry for unaccompanied single instruments (either full length, or several shorter pieces on different horns)…
    .
    As usual, the chaos of the universe throws problems which require our attention. Expression must be expressed. Music must be made. The chaos of the universe demands it.
    .
    PEK – 9/8/2020
    ... more
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1.

about

Evil Clown Headquarters
Waltham MA
7 September 2020

credits

released September 9, 2020

PEK - sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophones
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YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UClfRlTeeHnSxRsJTkFakiJw/videos
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-fixed-intentions/
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Other PEK Solo Releases
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Fundamental Units – Complete Solo Works from Jan 2020 to May 2021
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/peksolobox/
Bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/pek-solo-fundamental-units-complete-solo-works-from-jan-2020-to-may-2021-box-set-over-29-hours
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PEK Solo, An Orchestra of PEKs - Prisms (2021)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/prisms
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekorchr-prisms/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKYwsBNig04
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PEK Solo – Complex and Real Dimensions (2021)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/complex-and-real-dimensions
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/peksolor-complex/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8otufTFMrw
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PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs – Strange Beauty Out of Chaos (2021)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/strange-beauty-out-of-chaos
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-strange-beauty/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUB7QLaT9kQ
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PEK Solo, An Orchestra of PEKs - Electrolysis (2021)
Bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/electrolysis
Evil Clown Album Page: evilclown.rocks/pekorchr-electrolysis/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cXsfmFJwoo
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PEK Solo - Decision Boundary (2021)
Bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/decision-boundary
Evil Clown Album Page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-decision/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RMv-teUXtM
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PEK Solo, An Orchestra of PEKs - Stretching the Fabric of Space (2021)
Bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/stretching-the-fabric-of-space
Evil Clown Album Page: evilclown.rocks/pekorchr-stretching/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ9o3xgTlzU
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PEK Solo, An Orchestra of PEKs– Semantic Notions (3 CDs) (2021)
Bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/semantic-notions-triple-length
Evil Clown Album Page: evilclown.rocks/pekorchr-semantic-notions/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3vC0ruw7Pk
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxh7udXt2Yk
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_H6LFoJQig
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PEK Solo – Elaborations (2021)
Bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/elaborations
Evil Clown Album Page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-elaborations/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz75JyTLAQY
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PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs – For Ed’s Mom (2020)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/track/for-eds-mom
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-for-eds-mom/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrNmvnYcXQ4
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PEK Solo – For Alto (for Anthony Braxton) (2020)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/for-alto
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/peksolor-for-alto/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD9CYCxGFyI
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PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs – Completeness for Flutes and Double Reeds (2020)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/completeness-for-flutes-and-double-reeds
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-completeness/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oDoIkFUC1E
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PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs – Unifications (2020)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/unifications
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-unifications/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAQESbhT0Yc
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PEK Solo – Requiem for Raymond (2020)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/requiem-for-raymond
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/peksolor-requiem/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahsnu50twEE
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PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs – Fixed Intentions for the Saxophone Family (2020)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/fixed-intentions-for-the-saxophone-family
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-fixed-intentions/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=81r4VG44Tk0
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PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs – Schematic Abstractions for the Clarinet Family (2020)
Bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/schematic-abstractions-for-the-clarinet-family
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-schematic-abstractions/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHD44VVI1F0
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PEK Solo - Pursuing the Ideal Limit of Inquiry (2020)
bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/pursuing-the-ideal-limit-of-inquiry
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/peksolor-pursuing/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd0_GcSDLBI
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PEK Solo, A Quartet of PEKs - The Strange Theory of Light & Matter (2020)
bandcamp peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/the-strange-theory-of-light-matter
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekquarr-strange-theory/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_6GFUvy9Zk
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PEK Solo, An Orchestra of PEKs - Some Truths are Known (2020)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/pek-solo-an-orchestra-of-peks-some-truths-are-known-triple-album
Evil Clown Album Page evilclown.rocks/pekorchr-some-truths/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRlsC97zmtM
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxLrcy6JLKA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD1-ZnMbm4E
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PEK Solo – Schisms (2020)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/schism
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-schism/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo760Cpvvpc
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PEK Solo – Precedents (2021)
Bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/precedents
Evil Clown Album Page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-precedents/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucYQViiPGSU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-7ttl4Md1U
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XecNOjbYXU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-38ryXRXlHI
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Coefficient of Unity (2019)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/coefficient-of-unity
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-coefficient/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lOWBCe9SFE
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Indexical Utterance (2019)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/indexical-utterance
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-indexical/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKwvZF_ku0U
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Closed & Open Universes (2019)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/closed-open-universes-double-length
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-closed/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlseeFz_peE
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The Unreality of Time (2018)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/the-unreality-of-time
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-unreality-of-time/
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Non-Local Causality (2018)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/non-local-causality
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-non-local/
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Fulcrum (2018)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/fulcrum
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-fulcrum/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_tn8ioCDRo
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Thulsa Doom (2017)
bandcamp: peksolo.bandcamp.com/album/thulsa-doom
Evil Clown album page: evilclown.rocks/peksolor-thulsa-doom/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?si=zyy8q4YOcATM7dZv&v=r13kPRooDuU&feature=youtu.be
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r13kPRooDuU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubHHRDluU4Q
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug9bYaqLkms

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PEK Solo Boston, Massachusetts

PEK Solo albums fall into 4 groups
1) One continuous track (no overdubbing) of PEK playing one or many instruments
2) One continuous track of PEK playing one or many instruments with a prerecorded mix of samples
3) A Quartet of PEKs – Four continuous tracks of one PEK each playing many instruments on each pass.
4) An Orchestra of PEKs – Many tracks of PEKs on a broad section of the Arsenal.
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