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  Review by Darren Bergstein, Downtown Music Gallery
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  METAL CHAOS ENSEMBLE - Inferno (Evil Clown 9283; USA) More spellbinding razzledazzle from the Evil Clown family of sonic provocateurs, this time courtesy of the multi-limbed Metal Chaos Ensemble. “Led” by EC label impresario Dave PEK hoisting up high his usual mind-melting array of instruments, on this go ‘round the Ensemble also comprises Bob Moores (space trumpet, flugelhorn, baritone electric guitar, efx, soft synths, etc.), Eric Woods (analog synthesis), Mike Gruen (signal processing, purple sparkles electric bass), and Steve Niemitz (Chaos kit, various drums, bells, and other percussive paraphernalia), in addition to recording engineer Joel Simches, who endeavors to prevent the whole enterprise from falling in to the abyss and provides additional real-time signal processing. All told, this is another walk in the wild woods, a massive, marathon mess o’ sound that is at once overwhelming, cathartic, demanding, exhausting, and exhilarating. Facile descriptors for this music simply don’t apply here: such notions as ‘jazz’, ‘improv’, or ‘avantism’ are merely fading signposts that act only as off-the-cuff categorical pin-drops. This is true experimental music that along its hour-plus duration deconstructs everything you know about sound and reorients it in ways most of us could scarcely contemplate, much less actualize. Between the gusty derecho of synthesis, the fusillade of clanging metals, the airbursts of brass and woodwinds, and everything in between, PEK and Co. essentially mandate we change our methods of listening, even when bludgeoning us about the head with their blustery blurts of sound. Occasionally PEK speaks in a biblical, Burroughsian tongue whose narrative threads a malevolence reflected in the diabolus in musica splattering before our ears, lending an arch, theatrical, sidelong weight to a music often lacking in such elements. Be careful ye who enter here indeed; powerful stuff, not for the faint-hearted.
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  - Darren Bergstein, Downtown Music Gallery
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  ---LINER NOTES BY PEK
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  Metal Chaos Ensemble was formed in early 2015 by PEK and Yuri Zbitnov as a working project to explore chaotic rhythms on metallic instruments. I had started to amass the Evil Clown Arsenal of percussion, electronic and wind instruments and we needed a workshop to develop this universe of sounds for the Leap of Faith Orchestra. It was immediately obvious that Metal Chaos Ensemble had a sound to itself and over the last six years has been one of the most prolific Evil Clown ensembles. We have produced over 50 albums covering a wide range of sonority sets, but always with the presence of gongs, chimes, glockenspiel, Tibetan bowls and many other metallic sounds and the horns of PEK.
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  Over time, a more-or-less fixed sextet has emerged with me on narration, horns and percussion, Mike Caglianone on saxes, Bob Moores on space trumpet, guitar and electronics, Mike Gruen on electric bass and Steve Niemitz on drums and percussion. Joel Simches rounds out the project with his live to 2-track mix and real-time signal processing. For this particular set, Mike C was not able to make it, so we did this as a quintet.
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  This MCE configuration is the most rock-leaning Evil Clown ensemble with extended groove sections and prominent electronics. Steve, who has taken over the drum chair from Yuri, decided to premiere the Chaos Kit for this set. The Chaos Kit replaces the drum set with metal objects instead of skinned percussion. We did integrate my large Daiko drum into the set to serve the role of the bass drum and to give the set a bottom end.
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  The source text for the narration comes from Dante’s Inferno. Wow! There is some really dark stuff in this ancient text… I’m super happy with this album and I bet you like it too…
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  PEK – 9/18/2021 ... more
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