Devin DiSanto/Nick Hoffman - Three Exercises (CD)

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ErstAEU 005

A self-aware release presenting 3 exercises exploring the relationship between performer and audience, DiSanto & Hoffman recorded and reworked these pieces from live performance, including introductions and explanations, using sound created from common objects and stochastic synthesis. Four-panel digipak, photos by Devin and Nick, design by Matthew Revert.

For lossless (16/44) files, go to this page.
TRACK LIST

1.  preparation / introduction (5:24)
2.  sequence 1 (4:14)
3.  exercise 1 (3:13)
4.  sequence 1 (3:15)
5.  recreation (3:54)
6.  exercise 2 (5:33)
7.  sequence 1.2 (9:34)
8.  exercise 3 / end (8:46)

(released June 24, 2015)
CREDITS

Devin DiSanto/Nick Hoffman-electronic sounds generated in real-time using FM and dynamic stochastic synthesis

recorded at St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School, West Hartford, CT, August 8-9, 2014

photos by Devin and Nick
design by Matthew Revert
REVIEWS

Joshua Minsoo Kim, Tone Glow
The opening track of Three Exercises ends with a brief statement: "It's August 9th, 2014. Devin DiSanto and Nick Hoffman, St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School." Yet before we're told this, certain sounds help to establish the environment we're in—tables squeak loudly across tile floors, doors with push bars reverberate as they close, and both a parent and child talk in the distance. Even if one hadn't glanced at the photos that decorate the CD's packaging, one could likely deduce that these performances took place inside a school gymnasium. But more than just an unveiling of the sounds and location that characterize Three Exercises, "preparation / introduction" reveals a very important component to the album: transparency.

Two writers, Justin Palmer and Sharon Glassburn, are tasked with recording notes out loud into a tape recorder. And throughout the album, we get an understanding, albeit a vague one, of the ensuing sounds. The actual three exercises that take place are hard to parse, however, and an overlap of sounds between tracks diminishes any sense of clarity regarding when each activity took place relative to one another. In "sequence 1" and "exercise 3", we hear Devin playing with a Boggle game—the container is shaken, an hourglass is flipped, and a list of words is recited. Interestingly, a portion of the former is replayed over speakers in "sequence 2", and DiSanto performs a variation of this process that replaces the Boggle game with Bingo, cage and all.

The first and second "exercise" tracks and "sequence 1.2" seem to be interrelated. From piecing the tracks together and viewing the images on the cover, one can somewhat figure out what's going on here: duct tape is measured and placed on the gymnasium floor, DiSanto walks along the duct tape foot-to-foot with a collapsible table that's placed on a moving dolly, ping pong balls fall off that table and their end point is numbered and marked with duct tape. An interlude entitled "recreation" also occurs midway through the album which, appropriately, features basketballs being dribbled and shot into the gym's hoop.

For many, the task-driven nature of Three Exercises will be reminiscent of DiSanto's Tracing a Boundary. On that record, numerous sounds—namely the folding of paper and the soft hum of wind—were heard in an open space. The piece channeled the calming nature of working on a project or doing housework on a Sunday afternoon. Instruments were occasionally played and announcements with specific times (e.g. "13 minutes") periodically interjected but they never detracted from the overall mood. Three Exercises isn't exactly meditative but it feels very much like the product of DiSanto's approach there with Nick Hoffman's texturally-minded works via different types of synthesis (on this recording, frequency modulation and dynamic stochastic synthesis). It never gets too noisy, but it's a clear combined effort and the interplay between both musicians is harmonious and engaging, often helping to pace the record effectively.

There's a lot happening in Three Exercises but the beauty of the recording is that its mysteries don't need to be thoroughly decoded to enjoy. At times, the reveal is delightful—knowing that the terrifying crunch that opens "sequence 2" comes from a spinning Bingo ball cage is hilarious. But more often than not, a play-by-play isn't necessary to be fixated by what's present on these eight tracks; the juxtaposition between the twirling Bingo ball cage and the silence that follows is potent and affecting whether or not we recognize the source. And because of that, the record holds a fascinating paradox of sorts—the semi-acousmatic nature of the work affirms how nonessential it is to see and know the source of any given sound to appreciate it.

During my initial listens of Three Exercises, I made sure to pay close attention to Palmer and Glassburn's notes. At first, they functioned solely as guides who helped me unearth what DiSanto and Hoffman were doing. But after my "need" for them was presumably finished, their roles shifted from somewhat auxiliary to indispensable—their voices, usually signified with tape feedback, were important elements that contributed just as much as anything else to the sonic make-up of these tracks. In other words, the very things that exposed these sounds were better appreciated as pure aural elements. Three Exercises is transparent but the innate qualities of the sounds therein, and our visceral engagement with them, take precedence. And the record manages to point out that exact phenomenon. That the alluring mystique of the record's production is sustained after its literal unveiling is at the heart of what makes Three Exercises a masterpiece.


Lucas Schleicher, Brainwashed
Fun is too often ignored when talking about experimental music. The language surrounding works by composers like Iannis Xenakis or Luc Ferrari is usually technical or mathematical, and sometimes political, but it's rarely euphoric or exuberant. Which is a shame, because the flash of their audaciousness and the buzz of excitement their music generates is just as dignified and as worthy as the theory running beside it. Devin DiSanto and Nick Hoffman's Three Exercises, which takes some inspiration from both Xenakis and Ferrari, is a lot of things. There should be no shame or reticence in recognizing that chief among them is fun. Recorded at St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School in West Hartford, Connecticut, it spins amusement and pleasure from sources both unusual and mundane, with humdrum objects like ping pong balls and duct tape, and with homemade instruments like the one Hoffman tests in this video, which utilizes dynamic stochastic processes. Tucked away behind these sounds are ideas about the relationships between artists and audiences, structures and performances, and between spaces and sounds. Theory and technicality still figure into the mix, only they are inseparably attached to the noises that DiSanto and Hoffman deploy, and are as much a part of the fun as the chaos of the music.

"Preparation/Introduction," the first song on Three Exercises, drops its audience into St. Thomas in media res. Devin and Nick have already arrived and are nearly finished arranging all of the instruments and paraphernalia featured on the cover of their album. Sounds from outside the building leak into the room, doors open and close, a car horn honks, and various devices are tested before a brief series of conversations ensue. "So yeah, it's pretty straightforward," someone says. Then, "Did you have to walk around the building at all?" There's an audience apparently, and instructions, and a whole lot of shuffling of paper and plastic.

Devin then announces the date, introduces both himself and Nick, and "Sequence 1" begins. A voice says, "Devin introduces Nick... and himself," and before the repetition can register, a blast of bass-heavy noise flies from the speakers. It stops suddenly and is followed by the sound of glass pebbles, echoing footsteps, and more voices, apparently describing the actions responsible for some of the sounds. The effect is dizzying. DiSanto and Hoffman perform, their audience describes, and the music is tied into a knot of observations, noises, objects, and actions. There's a sense that every possible thing Devin and Nick could have included on the album is included: all the tools, the composition (if there is one, and if not, the instructions), the thoughts of the people hearing the music for the first time, the hum of amplifiers, the echo of the gymnasium itself. Even the preparations and notes for recording the album are a part of the album, in a direct, fourth-wall-breaking kind of way.

But there's a lot of deliberation too. Sounds are cut and layered cinematically, as if to give the listener a chance to see the same thing from two different perspectives. When Justin Palmer and Sharon Glassburn, the two observers who narrate the proceedings, speak, they cycle through a variety of tones: bemused, quiet, like someone on a birdwatching expedition, tense, theatrical. In each case there's a voyeuristic rush inherent in their speech. There's a secret or a ritual unfolding on this album and these participants are relaying it to the outside covertly. The album's visual qualities grow out of these segments as well. Had each "Sequence" or "Exercise" been thoroughly logged, Three Exercises might have become something like a documentary, but DiSanto and Hoffman stop just short of that, teasing the audience with tidbits rather than exhaustive descriptions. The parts are all relatively clear, how and why they fit together is left obscured.

There's also a sensitivity toward the density of different passages and an appreciation for the sonic similarities among diverse groups of things, like basketballs, shoes, service bells, and synthesizer tones. The space they are in, it's shape and size, solidifies as moments of high intensity and near silence pass, so that the way the music is arranged, the way the instruments are set up, and the distances between events and objects, all register clearly. To have so much happening on an album, and at the same time to have it all so thoughtfully laid out and superbly produced, is overwhelming in the best possible way. Three Exercises is a complex and stratified album, with a ton of depth and thoughtfulness built into it. Listening naturally elicits questions and insights, about how hearing or seeing a performance changes our reaction to it, or about how audiences help to complete a piece of music just by thinking about it. But it's a boisterous and playful enough record to thrill with its audible dimensions alone.