Altering Auditory Perception Through Sensory Percussion: Floating Into Infinity with Composer Benjamin Louis Brody and Drummer Ian Chang
Floating Into Infinity is a new album from composer Benjamin Louis Brody, described as “one of the most progressive and multi-faceted musicians in New York City.” There’s definitely a lot of low guitar and even symphonic gestures in sound here, which makes sense, considering Brody’s history as a guitarist and symphonic composer.
Composer Benjamin Louis Brody and Drummer Ian Chang
The entire album, however, is actually played on a drum kit with the help of a program called Sensory Percussion. The performer is virtuosic drummer Ian Chang, who has established himself as a gifted player as a solo artist and in bands such as the experimental electronic group Son Lux and the lush pop rock of Landlady.
Working in what Brody describes as “meta-textual sonic DNA,” the suite invites deep listening into uncharted realms drenched in auditory perception for a kinetic connection between the two, for an indescribable experience of undefinable soundworlds. This drumming sampling program was invented by pioneering drumming company Sunhouse. It’s a machine learning technology that gives Chang “the ability to teach the software the nuances of my acoustic drumming in order to convert the drum kit into a hyper sensitive sampler.”
Chang elaborates on the process of taking a drum and assigning samples or nuances of samples to each aspect of playing a drum, as in the way hitting different parts of the head of drum makes a slightly different sound acoustically, or the varied sounds that come from hitting the rim in different ways. He’s able to assign all those nuances to either different samples, or like, different ways of affecting a sample.
“You literally have to teach this software the way you play,” Chang explains. “Once the software understands my playing, which is different from anyone else's playing, then I can customize the sonic environment that comes out of it.”
A little backstory on how this idiosyncratic suite came together: “Floating Into Infinity” was originally conceived as a ballet in 2017. The work is a unique composition that utilizes a new sampling software for drummers called Sensory Percussion. Developed by Sunhouse, it’s a true leap forward in drumming technology, combining the nuance and control of an acoustic drum and the limitless possibilities of digital sound. The technology allows Brody and Chang to push the boundaries of the drum set, bringing a vast enormous soundscapes to the composition. Later in 2017, they continued their collaboration with the spine-tingling cut, “ASMR,” from Chang’s debut solo EP, Spiritual Leader. NPR’s All Songs Considered described the track as an “arresting instrumental piece inspired by the inexplicable chills that sometimes run down your back.” Bandcamp Daily describes the piece as “a perfect example” of the use of Sensory Percussion where “various textural and melodic samples merge to create an atmospheric, almost ambient piece.”
It’s a technique that allowed for the altering of auditory perception through manipulation and processing of pre-recorded sounds where, as Brody describes it, “simply slowing down, speeding up or presenting fragments of a particular sample can lead to completely new auditory worlds, while also providing a sense of connection to sounds from the past.” A connection that Brody calls Sonic DNA, “a chain of smaller sound sources that make up distinct fundamental characteristics of a work.” The combination of those two ideas allowed Brody and Chang to “translate the physicality of drumming into customizable sonic environments with software that is able to learn the parameters of the drum to understand where and how you're hitting the drum giving the performer interpretive freedom.”
“I would be surprised if anyone who's heard the music would guess that it's written to be performed on drums, and I think that speaks to the unique experience of performing this music,” says Chang in describing Floating Into Infinity. “The physicality of playing the drums feels familiar, but the way my limbs relate to the sweeping textures that I'm triggering feels completely new.”
In fact, Chang felt like he had to completely relearn how to play his lifelong instrument for this project because the sounds created by playing with his kit patched to the programmed Sensory Percussion were completely distinct from anything he’d ever played before.
“It's a very bizarre feeling. I've spent my life learning, studying and playing drums,” says Chang about playing with Sensory Percussion. “I had to reprogram my brain. Sometimes I might be hitting a drum, but the sound it creates is a long, lush wash.”
“The amount of sounds I use I can probably count on one hand,” exclaims Brody. Despite nearly limitless options available and the fact that a new sound appeared every time he manipulated the samples, he wanted to create his own limitations to form the structure of the suite. “Everything was connected. Nothing new was ever generated completely by itself. Something always stemmed from something else.”
A couple of the sounds included are: a chugging low C strummed on the electric guitar or swelling strings from a sample taken from an orchestration Brody’s written previously. It was all incredibly elemental, or as Brody describes: ”I just started out with this sound world that came to me, a layer kind of like the water under the ocean, where the liquid becomes thicker than the actual ocean water.”
As a composer Brody also thinks visually in imagery, which comes through here.
“Brody's command of texture and sound design is at the heart of his compositions,” describes Chang. “I really love how this body of work always feels like it's constantly moving and bubbling on a micro level, while breathing in slow motion on a macro level, like a forest.”
The kinetic energy between Brody and Chang really comes through in this album.
“I've never worked with somebody who is so in tune with the interpretation of music,” Brody explains of the process of collaborating with Chang. “Anytime I sent an idea to him, it came back exactly the way I was thinking, or better.”
“Ben has a very personal approach to sound,” describes Chang. “He’s not necessarily trying to recreate something that he’s heard. He’s searching for something that's all his own from his tinkering. It’s really intuitive.”
