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The People’s Choice Award: Hannah Hoffman
37: Hannah Hoffman
Dutch Experts
Create a full-length album, “Dutch Experts”
DUTCH EXPERTS was born out of the Covid Pandemic during isolation and utter loneliness. Faced with long-Covid symptoms and the crumbling of societal infrastructure, singer/songwriter Hannah Hoffman turned one of her lowest and most challenging points into a revisitation of her approach to sound. Experimenting with layering synths and electronic drum beats in Garageband, Hoffman created a sonic landscape that bore the fruits of Dutch Experts. This sonic approach served as an escape from the Covid Pandemic while subsequently spawning the creation of an album. The process became both an ego-shattering catharsis, a celebration of devoting oneself to the creative process, and an exploration of Hoffman’s capabilities as a songwriter. Inspired by her personal challenges, the gothic landscape of The Cure, and melodic choices informed by Kate Bush and Cocteau Twins, Hoffman locked into a sound that became uniquely modern yet captured an 80s sonic sensibility: synth pop with a darkwave edge.
Project description
This project will be the recording of an album with a focus on the creative process and collaboration between musicians. My intention is to rent out a recording studio for a week and bring musicians together to interpret my demoed album in a live setting. This will then be recorded and produced to become the next release of my band project, Dutch Experts. I will be working exclusively with local musicians in a local recording studio, and then getting this album pressed on vinyl by a local vinyl pressing plant. This album will serve as a love-letter to my creative process and how I have learned to reclaim and cultivate it during my time living in Vermont. It will feature rich sonic textures from lots of exploration with synthesizers, and will have many different voices layered together to create a warm blanket of sound that will reflect the season in which it is recorded (I liken February to hibernation and seeking warmth). This album is my first full-length recording from my band project, Dutch Experts. It will be the next installment following my EP, ‘Bound by This’ which I self-released in February 2023 digitally and on vinyl. My intention with this project is to have it be very much a community-based, DIY effort, with everything grassroots oriented and without the help of a record label. I believe very firmly in independent music and musicians and reject the unrealistic standards and expectations set by corporate record labels.
Bound by This. “The title track from my debut EP.”
Soon. “A track from my debut EP.”
Your Heart. “A track from my debut EP.”
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August 22, 2023