Compilations 1995-2002 and Singles Compiled / Cold House / Home Is Where It Hurts / The Cycle Of Days And Seasons / Remixes / Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys / Structured Disasters / Silent 88 / Cabled Linear Traction / Live Reviews
Compilations 1995-2002 and Singles Compiled
Pitchforkmedia
[Singles Compiled Rating: 7.6, Compilations 1995-2002 Rating: 6.9]
Success
is creatively problematic. Any audience you build has expectations, and
will abandon the artist that disappoints them. Successful records establish
and cement a band's identity, limiting them conceptually-- just look at
what happened to the Violent Femmes on Hallowed Ground. But obscurity is
conversely problematic, as without an at least perceived audience to bounce
back adoration for what it is you're supposed to be, bands tend to flail
about on a whim. Without expectation, every record is your first, a clean
slate. We often assume bands that change their sound do so cynically, trying
to capitalize on the latest trends, but Hood aren't such opportunists: this
is a band almost childlike in their honest indulgences, playing with genres
like toy blocks, changing their sound drastically whenever something new
inspires them. Always selfish but never self-obsessed, Hood-- a Leeds quartet
initially mired in lo-fi indie rock-- are definitively whimsical. For just
over a decade, they've worked the independent circuit, releasing a spate
of 7" inch singles recently compiled-- along with older, unreleased
tracks recorded between 1994 and 1998-- as the 59-track, twin-disc Singles
Compiled set. 40 of these songs fit on disc one, so simple math should clue
you in: Hood didn't start out playing 6-minute, glitch-infused post-rock
dirges. In fact their nascent points of reference are lo-fi acts like This
Kind Of Punishment, Sebadoh and New Radiant Storm King. Hood's first few
singles are overloaded with droning one and two-minute acoustic guitar dirges,
most indistinguishable compositionally, and/or sonically; the first single
"A Harbor Of Thoughts" (1995) contains most of the best of this
material. Presented in chronological order, the band flowers beautifully.
From predictably distorted bedroom bleating, you can hear the band's increasing
exposure to and obsession with ambient and jungle music, as landscape meditations
build into accomplished combinations of drum n' bass and indie rock. Their
first major success in this field was 1998's "Weight" single,
which-- although it's dominated by more moping, inconsequential one-minute
tracks-- marks the band's split with indie guitar and features a loving
tribute to Warp Records, "Feel The Rush". In 1998, Hood changed
everything, working with Matt Eliot of Third Eye Foundation and taking cues
from fast friends Mogwai (as well as latter-day Talk Talk records); Rustic
Houses Forlorn Valleys was an album of titanic, dub-influenced tracks that
pushed the ten-minute mark. The band's single sides necessarily waned to
one song per, before the group moved away from the format, but the early
forays from 1998 included on disc two-- the "Filmed Initiative"
and "Year of the Occasional Lull" singles-- contain three of the
best tracks Hood have recorded. The first 7" captured early, experimental
fusions of slow 70s jazz, dub and American post-rock acts like Slint, one
of the best standalone singles to come out of the UK underground in ages.
While its B-side is a meandering Spectrum/Labradford drone, "Year Of
The Occasional Lull" absolutely predicts Minotaur Shock and Four Tet,
a superb collision of acoustic guitar and processed beats, hugely original
for the time. Though the sound is sadly a tired staple these days, it points
up what fantastic material Hood put together without much reinforcement
from critics or fans, and more than explains why Domino leapt to sign them
on. Most of the dozen unreleased tracks tacked on to the second disc are
oddly well-produced acoustic numbers from Hood's time of moving forward,
discarded in favor of new directions. These eager, earnest shoegaze skiffles
are remarkable in comparison to the dirtier recordings they first released,
sounding much more like their admittedly chief influence at the time, New
Zealand's still languishing This Kind Of Punishment (their records, reissued
in 1993 on the once excellent but now defunct Ajax Records, are again out
of print). "Innocence", "To Emphasize Words" and "The
Go-Between" in particular outshine the handful of good tracks from
the band's forming days of disc one, and point toward a recent torchbearer
for this sound, Bella Union's Czars. The single-disc Compilations 1995-2002
is of course a far more succinct retelling of Hood's past, moving within
three tracks from the Piano Magic of "For A Moment, Lost" to their
most overt Squarepusher impression, "Lo Band Width" (contributed
to Further Mutations, the fourth volume in an excellent post-rock/jazz n'
bass series on the Lo imprint). As you might expect, many of the comp cuts
aren't exactly prime grade, ever the dumping grounds for undercooked leftovers.
Many of these tracks simply focus too much on the technique or sound that
prompted Hood to lay them down, but like the Singles set, Compilations holds
a handful of great songs from every mode: the aching, string-backed acoustic
march "Song of the Sea", the excellent post-rock Smiths jangle
of "Sound of the Cliché Klaxons" and the Mogwai-lite approach
Hood were most famously associated with ("I Have It In My Heart to
Jump Into The Ocean"). Closet-cleaning compilations always satisfy
the fanatical record-collectors in any band's audience, and in Hood's case
there are many stranded stateside fans who've yet to hear these tracks.
Still, they aren't likely to cause much of a stir, even among fans of independent
music. With recent efforts leaning heavily toward clicks and cuts (their
last record featured cLOUDDEAD's Dose-One), these retrospectives will definitely
shock anyone only recently aware of the band via their Aesthetics releases--
I can't recommend them to anyone who hasn't heard and cherished a late-90s
Hood record. Preferring that period to their recent infatuation with electronics,
I'll certainly be spinning them again.
-Chris Ott, April 24th, 2003
Ptolmaeic Terrascope
These two compilations are a godsend to all rabid fans and recent converts of this Wetherby/Leeds lo-fo psychadelic noise ffolk duo/band. The core of the explorations are brothers Richard and Chris Adams who seem to be able to distill a certain kind of hallicinatory melancholia that is all their own. "Singles Compiled" is a double CD set which includes tracks from various 7" singles and EP's on labels like 555, Happy Go Lucky, Love Train, Earworm, Orgasm and Rocket Racer aswell as 15 previously unreleased tracks recorded between 1994 and 1998. Primitive beginnings but the atmospheric spark is present even in their earliest incarnation. A sullen resignation and matter of fact tone in the spoken/sung intonations, while the abstracted musical backing merging sound experimentation with more purely musical aspects. They often feel like some lost NZ band somewhere between The Great Unwashed and the earliest Chills. There are 40(!) tracks on the first CD and these chronicle their development from a shambolic flailing to an evolving eloquence. Some of the tracks have obviously been faded out before they are finished which gives them a decidedly edited feel, providing glimpses where one might wish to take a longer look.But one supposes their prodigious output prohibited them from including all of the songs at their original lengths: and it should be said that most songs are quite intact. The second disc is only 19 tracks, but they are mostly much more lengthy and later. By this point in their development they are easily recognisable as kin to the band they are today. A post rock desolation that pulses in slow motion dub, electronic/organic, drone folk collisionms of grey texture and distance housing inner human frailty and warmth within a safe tranparent insulation. Isolated and oddly genorous in a ionsular, nearly autistic way. This comes with a full colour 8 page booklet with info and cover art. "Compilations 1995-2002" is a single disc collection with (only) twenty songs but suprisingly its the better of the two releases discussed here. This compilation is assembled from songs they contributed to split single and various compilations assembled to benefit publications like this one and The Broken Face, Hayfever and Cool Beans. Often bands feel alright pitching throwaways to such enterprises but Hood seem to be made of better stuff, or they have just excluded the runts from the litter. This set of songs ranks amongst the finest albums Hood have yet unleashed, made of all the hazy mirages, phantoms and twilight that distinguish them as the genre defying magicians they are. Like a lot of great inherently sad music, this is very comforting to listen to and seems applicable and topical in these times.
Mojo
Two sets feature 89 obscurities from Leeds based group's archivesIn recent
years this enigmatic group have blossomed into one of the UK's most stimulating
left field outfits, as those entranced by the mix of melody and sonic inventiveness
displayed on last years Cold House will confirm. Judging by this mass of
unearthed material, they are one of the most prolific too. Its something
of a mixed blessing. Back in the mid '90's they were operating to an experimental,
resolutely lo-fi agenda and the majority of the 69 tracks on the double
set Singles Compiled which also includes much unreleased material consist
of tunes which are too fleeting, and ideas too half baked to register. Compilations
1995-2002 features ultra rare releases and split singles and here the group
sound clearer about what they are saying. Its the most satisfying of the
two releases but both are worth investigating.
Mike Barnes
Careless Talk Costs Lives - May 2003 issue
As Britain ‘popped’ during 1995-1998, the brothers Adams and friends
remained unconcerned for indie-payback, whilst exploring atmospherics and
longing amongst loose chords and individual instrumentation. CD1 demonstrates
the lost art of squeezing 7” singles of all vinyl available, via six
different have-a-go record labels. By 1998, the melancholic Wedding Present
jangles with pancake flat vocals give way to the more considered, Anglified-dub
pieces which open CD2 and eventually found a home on Domino records. The
additional 15 unreleased tracks included on CD2 and a separate CD of compilation
tracks (Compilations 1995-2002) simply illustrate the rare quality of a
determinably aware band becoming at ease with its own discomfort, in its
own time
Broken Face
There are some bands that master the single format and others who never
seem to be able to get things quite right unless they're allowed to spread
out over at least an hour. Former Broken Face cover stars Hood has on numerous
occasions proved to be extraordinary both as a single and album band. So
it comes as no surprise that Singles Compiled, a 69-track compilation on
Misplaced Music is quite a stunner and a must have for anyone that has been
following these guys as closely as we have. Even hardcore fans will most
likely find this essential, since it doesn't only include long gone singles
issued by Hood between 1995 and 1998 but also boasts 15 previously unreleased
tracks and an 8 page booklet with liner notes from the band. That being
said, we get a little from every corner of the Hood household, there are
guitar-oriented lo-fi pop gems from the early days, folk-induced pop minimalism,
screaming feedback rockers, avant noise, dreamy acoustic orchestrations
bathed in an ocean of processed electronics and often with the typically
nasal vocals from Chris Adams gliding through it all. Hood has always been
the uncrowned tzars of finding the well-hidden gates between electronica,
indie rock and folk, and this is possibly even more obvious when we get
all these aspects of the band lined up one after another. Recommended.
Arriving at the same time is an equally fascinating compilation of various
compilation tracks from 1995-2002. Overall this is the more adventurous
document, allowing the band to explore new directions without getting the
usual complaints saying, "the last album was a whole lot better."
The opening sad lament of "For a Moment, Lost" (from a compilation
CD with the Ptolemaic Terrascope) is so beautiful it could make you cry,
and I could easily say the same about the delicately floating pop of "All
My Friends Are Dead", but I guess I should avoid such strong expressions
since it first saw its way to the masses through Urban Meadows, a benefit
CD for this mag. These two songs could roughly be described as traditional
in a grainy Hood kind of way, but there are plenty of more genre-defying
things hereon as well. Despite sometimes trying at least ten things at the
same time it's definitely no disjointed mess, rather a lovely introduction
to one of my all-time favorite bands. We also get another dose of the recurring
motifs in the band's artwork with grassy fields and blurry landscape photography.
I can't possibly think of a better way to communicate Hood's sound than
through such images, so if you're wondering if you'd really enjoy this or
not, just look at the cover art.
MG
Spin
Hood
make mope rock for the laptop era. This British quartet are survivors of
a brief early - '90s moment of mingling between U.K. indie rock and techno.
Reared on the guitar haze of A. R. Kane and My Bloody Valentine, these groups
had their heads flipped around b Aphex Twin. While some of them, like Seefeel,
gradually went all the way into abstract electronix, other, like legends-to-a-few
Disco Inferno, remained attached to the song and the voice. Updating this
dream pop-meets-electronica formula, Hood offers glitch with a human face,
their sound poised between the Jack Frost fragility of New Zealand jangler
the Chills and the faded-photo poignancy of Boards of Canada. Crunchy filtered
beats jostle with bright acoustic guitar, crestfallen analog synths waver
alongside mournful horns. But just as you've got Cold House pegged as a
way-underground cousin to Kid A and Vespertine, another element comes in
from far left-field: hip-hop. Abstrakt-to-the-max rhymes from Doseone and
Why? of Bay Area crew Clouddead feature on three tracks, ranging from surreal
lines like "sometimes the sun doesn't want to be photographed"
to stuff that's more like a braid-of-breath than actual decipherable words.
As Cold House's title suggests, the dominant mood is desolate (Hood come
from Leeds, the infamously bleak north of England). On "The Winter
Hit Hard," gale-force winds of dubbed-out drumming buffet a frail sapling
of a vocal melody, and the entire album teems with images like "there's
coldness in this sky" or "your cold hand in mine." This dearth
of heat is as much a matter of internal affect as climate, though. chris
Adams' fallible voice recalls too-sensitive-for-this-world folk minstrel
Nick Drake, and the lyrics manage to stay just on the right side of "precious"
as they flick through snapshots from what seems to be the drawn out death
throes of a relationship. Pained insights flash by concerting regret, the
oppressive weight of the past, dreams "snatched from your grasp,"
and the way the world seems dead, stripped of all enchantment, after the
love had gone. For Hood, life's a glitch, and then you cry.
rating: 8/10
-Simon Reynolds
NME – 17 November 2001
Great skills from enduring indie fellas
Roughly as bling-bling as a lard sandwich, these days it’s very easy
to underestimate the Hoods of this world. Four Yorkshiremen who espouse
every cliché of old-skool indie – the faceless bedroom productions,
the inability to sing in tune – their erratic approach to songcraft
has tempered their frequent fineness previously. But ‘Cold House’
produced by Black Star Liner’s Choque Hosein, is uniformly excellent.
Really.
‘They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here’
(the title comes with the territory, we’re afraid) is a consummate
opening track: sorrowful strings, skittering beat constructs and desperate
vocals, plus offbeat rhyming from Dose One and Why? of cloudDEAD..
It’s an accurate primer for the rest of the LP. Open-eared enough
to swallow up devastating, dubbed-out slo-core (‘Enemy Of Time’)
and bonkers glitch-electronics (‘This Is What We Do To Sell Out(s)’);
echo-chamber dub colliding with Tortoise-pace guitar and dark-corner drones.
Few, if any, British bands are making music quite like this right now.
‘Cold House’ is a revelation: confirming that indie isn’t
dead, despite what the utter paucity of ambition or relevance in 90 percent
of the current plod-guitar crop might lead you to believe. Not just a triumph
of the independent spirit – more importantly, a great album. (8)
Noel Gardner
The Guardian
(Domino) ****
The cover of Cold House depicts the Yorkshire moors, blurred, as if something
is happening just beyond the lens. This desolate region is best known for
inspiring the Brontës, and as the temporary resting place of the several
bodies that are found in shallow graves each year. The moorlands overlook
Wetherby, home of Hood, who have tapped into the area's artistic tradition
to produce an album with a disturbing, supernatural pull. Their songs are
cold as the earth and have titles such as They Removed All Trace That Anything
Had Ever Happened Here, but Hood are no one-trick miseries. Their music
is a collage of sound: past influences (from Brian Eno to Keith Jarrett
to Talk Talk to dub) nestle next to Warp-style electronica. Cold House is
perhaps related to Radiohead's Kid A, but it's hardly inaccessible. The
band claim to like Destiny's Child as much as Stockhausen, and their melodies
hook you in. Chris Adams's meandering vocals drift in and out of the mix,
telling tantalising half- tales of lost youth, regrets and the deaths of
children. Not one for Christmas parties, but among the boldest music made
in Britain this year. (DS)Home Is
Mojo - april 2001
home is where it hurts
the real experimental pop band?
hood's
mid 90's releases were full of rough snapshots of mood and place, but their
guitar based music has always permitted woodwinds, keyboards, electronic
disturbances, voices and found sounds. their vagueness, though evocative,
could be frustrating at times. this, their sixth album finds the music more
vivid, more adventurous, more realised and more accessible. the only frustration
now is that this collection clocks in at under half an hour. the ghost most
readily evoked in this mixture of ambience and contrariness is that of the
underrated sadly demised bark psychosis. on 'the fact that you failed',
guitars gradually build on a chord pattern along with sampled voices and
dubwise effects. Meanwhile whirring, clicking electronics, parlour piano
and violin drones somehow find their place on the mantric pop of 'cold fire
woods of western lanes' - and its a beauty.
-mike barnesnme - april 2001
NME
while leeds postniks hood's earlier works were characterised by a magpie-like
wonder for stolen samples and exotic clutter, the overwhelming atmosphere
of their latest mini-lp is of insularity and dread. occasional bouts of
half-whispered vocals are scant comfort against a backdrop of fidgety rhythms
and tense, dubby bass.
there are nods across the atlantic to chicago post-rock boffins tortoise
and even flashes of dirty three's mournful violin screeches on 'the world
touches too hard', but this remains an unmistakably english record with
echoes of robert wyatt and eno's 'another green world'. But disappear for
a moment through the gaps in the music and you notice that hood's defining
influences are the hum of streetlights over suburban pavements and the faint
whir of late night taxis to suburbia.
perhaps the defining brilliance of 'home is where it hurts' is that hood
haven't actually invented anything - they've just sat at home and accurately
recreated the world that they have been cowering behind their front doors
avoiding for the last few years.
-jim wirth
Wire - april 2001
the strongest release yet from the leeds group. compressing their inventiveness
into a fruitful 25 minutes. here they bring more studio treatments to bear
on the basic, pastoral rock foundation of their songs: they mix fluttering
edits with chiming guitars on 'home is where it hurts', while 'the fact
that you failed' charts an understated yet epic journey from minimalist
romanticism with dub effects to a blasted finish with guitars scything through
the emptiness. hood exist in a vacuum of their own creation, sometimes overindulgently
sprawling, sometimes displaying singularity of vision.
Uncut - april 2001
rating: ***
monumental duo hood specialise in shuffling, half-deconstructed semi-instrumentals
of primal simplicity. it is no surprise this neophyte team have been working
with mogwai, whose cave-painting intensity they approach on several of these
five tracks. like a lot of what gets branded post-rock, tunes such as 'cold
fire woods of western lanes' actually sound more like pre-rock - stark,
rudimentary, neo-folk monoliths. if you have been searching for a hybrid
of early, guitar-driven new order and sebadoh, look no further. even if
you haven't, hood still throb with promise - or is that menace?
-stephen dalton
Cycle of Days and Seasons
Speeder Magazine
Given the term ‘British post-rock’, you would be forgiven for
immediately thinking of Mogwai. While it is true that Mogwai are the most
successful of the bunch, there are a number of other bands ploughing a similar
sonic furrow that are deserving of a mention.
One of these bands is Hood. Signed to Domino, they buck the current post-rock
fashion of eschewing vocals. Instead, they employ a haunting male/female
vocal style that is reminiscent of Prolapse toned down to a whisper. Half-heard
lyrics referring to passing seasons, sun-less skies, ghost towns and casual
misanthropy contribute to the defiantly ephemeral nature of the album’s
imagery, right down to the scratchy monochrome photo’s on the sleeve.
What sets Hood aside from their peers, however, is the music. Employing
scratchy cello, guitar looped backwards and metallic, inhuman samples (one
seems to be a broken down photocopier), the band achieve a sound that is
both removed, distant and ethereal and yet also hauntingly existential:
every note seems to prompt some long forgotten recognition in the listener.
In this, they are not unlike fellow space rockers Labradford.
Album closer "Cycle of Days and Seasons" is comparable to the
sample-led melancholia of Bristol’s Portishead. Here, Hood prove themselves
almost entirely original in a genre that too often engages in sonic inbreeding.
A masterpiece of superlative experimentation. 9.5
NME – 5 June 1999
This is a record of quiet and displaced loneliness. It’s full of the
uncanny sensation that you’ve somehow ended up in the wrong place,
but can’t remember where. Which is all very much in keeping with Hood’s
befuddled take on introspective music – where being a shambles is very
much an occupational hazard.
Following on from 1996’s ‘Distant Houses and Forlorn Valleys’,
this feather The Third Eye Foundation’s Mat Elliott on board as producer.
The result is an elegiac combination of medative guitars and inspired tetchy
sampling shot through with rainy-day northern melancholy.
‘Western Housing Concerns’ evokes wet afternoons in their native
Wetherby. Half-audible whispering voices alongside looped muffled church
bells of ‘September Brings The Autumn Dawn’ make for ambient disquiet
without ever falling into tweeness. Elsewhere, on ‘The Cliff Edge Of
Workday Morality’ strings haunt, adding to the delicate weary tone.
Call it post-rock if you like but Hood, like the quiet army of Godspeed
You Black Emperor!, have found in the genre a new means of expression: leaving
behind self-consciousness noodling and experimentation for its own sake
by adding grace and intensity. Here, quite possibly, is a bit of the future.
And it’s quiet. (7)
Neil Thomson
Konketsu
Like many post-rock and even indie bands, Hood have delved into the potentially
dangerous modern musical process known as remixology. But Hood are hipper
than most, incorporating a lot of multi-instrumental and electronic experimentation
in their own records and running a label (555) that is definitely on the
global forefront of progressive electronica with releases from Downpour,
Steward, Remote Viewer and Kid 606. Thus, the four remixes on this EP are
done by some of the more interesting experimental electronic producers working
at the moment. The Third Eye Foundation again defines his trademark ambient
soundscape skated over and around by angry angled drum crescendos barely
held in check and looped tidbits of the Hood original peeking in and out
of the abyss. The most beautiful remix for me is by Horse Opera--drumless,
but propelled forward by bleeps and the gorgeously tweaked chord progressions
of Hood creating a melancholy but hopeful atmosphere that I never want to
end. The Spymania mix by label head Hardy is two halves beatless mesh of
stuttering instrumental loops divided by beautifully distorted vocals. It
is at once soothing and jarring, but not nearly as jarring as the screech
and scrape of Twisted Science's remix which starts out quite innocently
but erupts in a cataclysm of burning noise that is great if you go for that
sort of thing and painful if you don't. Jarin
Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys
Melody Maker
If
you didn't know that Hood had been hatched by two brothers in the corner
of their bedroom "Rustic Houses Forlorn Valleys" would leave you
in no doubt. A dank tangle of guitars, reeds, strings and samplers, it has
a clotted, closeted almost incestuous air - how Arab Strap might have ended
up if they had spent their days telling each other stories instead of getting
drunk in the park and sleeping with all their friends.
Christopher and Richard Adams plus the couple of outsiders allowed into
their sanctum prefer this dreamy intensity, a sleep softened mood that could
snap into staring menace at any moment. Often very lovely - the Labradfordian
opener "SE Rain Patterns", the distorted "Your Ambient Voice"
torn apart from the inside by a distorted electric thrum - there's enough
discord here to stop you being duped by beauty. The sub Guided By Voices
scrawl of "Diesel Pioneers" and the occasional feathery feyness
might keep your heart on hold too, but caution be damned. For all the murk
and darkness of their name, Hood are a lucid pleasure.the guardian
rustic houses, forlorn valleys
By virtue of their youth and looks Hood have been teasingly described as
the indie Take That. The group merge piano, clarinet, guitars, bass and
drums with more dysfunctional sampldelia to produce music that is for the
most part intensely pretty. On their best song Your Ambient Voice, this
prettiness is disrupted by some unrecognisable but jarring noise to create
feelings of unease. Such perversity is endearing. Titles like The Leaves
Grow Old And Fall And Die seem to reiterate the group's downcast and wearied
world view. Best of all Hood have composed a beautifully evocative record
that, the above title aside, eschews the usual cliches of miserabilism.vox
Vox
Out of gentle guitarwork, warm bass and barely discernible vocals, Hood
have sculpted a wondrous aural treat. Formed in the early 1990's by brothers
Christopher and Richard Adams, this is Hood's third album but one which
sees them dropping their earlier lo-fi experimentalism for a more tactile
feeling of isolated beauty. "SE Rain Patterns" layers sound upon
sound, idea upon idea until it builds to a plaintive vocal cry and fades.
"Boer Farmstead" ploughs a resonant path with backward-recorded
rim-shots and lightly flavoured oboe, while "The Leaves Grow Old And
Fall And Die" embarks on a colourful journey into the autumn of relationships.
Throughout the six medium to long pieces on this album, sounds, melodies
and chords come and go like strangers leaving only to re-emerge where you
least expect them. Not an easy listen, as it demands close attention but
a very worthwhile one.
Unknown...
Hood have been plying their bedroom scratchings since the early 90s, when
the "Sirens" 7" caught the good aspects of noise-pop pips
The Mary Chain while filtering out their cloying pretentiousness. Of course,
that latter quality is a bit subjective, especially in light of such song
titles as "Trust Me, I'm a Stomach," "Smash Your Head on
the Cubist Jazz," or "I'm Turning Into a Cart." But really,
their world view is pretty well summed up in a title from a song contained
on the "Lee Faust's Million Piece Orchestra" ep - "Rock?
I Can't Even Spell the Word." Brothers Richard and Chris Adams create
the kind of pastiche the fraternal coupling of the brothers Jefferies did
in This Kind of Punishment if Peter didn't play drums and Alastair Galbraith
was somewhere in the mix as a half-brother. That's a bit of an unfair description
since Hood's quiet desperation is exquisitely captured in songs like "Experiments
in Silence" or "Choosing a Grimace," where the mantra of
"my priorities are wrong" convinces you that things are not all
well in Hood land. "Structured Disasters" (once the working title
of their debut "Cabled Linear Traction") is not so much a (ahem)
"greatest hits" for the newbie, or just for completists, but works
well with both camps. It's a catch-up in that a good number of scarce singles
tracks and unreleased stuff have been captured together (kinda like what
Max Quitz did for the Bill Direen), but it's also lacking some of the breadth
of the two previous long players have. I'd recommend "Silent '88"
before this if you've never delved into Hood before, but once you get there,
you'll be coming back for this. If you have been paying attention to the
Adam's offerings, though, this fills holes and makes sense in relation to
what's come before and after.
Unknown...
The first Hood LP "Cabled Linear Traction" was a wonderful, confusing
mixture of Crabstick, the Wake, the Field Mice and extremely grim northern
fortitude amongst the disturbing ambient bits. The second launches itself
with the very first "proper" songs that Hood have ever recorded,
with strongly sung vocals and a great chorus. "The Field is Cut",
despite the fact that they've never recorded a song like it before, is typical
Hood, melancholic, determined, it couldn't have been written by someone
born south of Sheffield. But its the stranger more free-jazz than lo-fi
moments on this album which more often that not slip into collapsing half-heated
drum and bass, like "Documenting Crop Rotation" and "Smash
Your Head on the Cubist Jazz". Quite brilliant, I think you're all
missing something amazing north of Sheffield.
The Wire
Hood also go all over the place on "Silent '88". This home recording has a 26-track menu of pretty acoustic passages, full-throated howling over fuzz guitar, primitive chamber pieces, still life abstract passages and out of nowhere an insane snippet of drum 'n' bass with mournful piano and curdled electronics. Again it's the kind of mess that hits the mark. How sweet it is when the incredulous question "Who are they aiming this at?" is simply answered: "Me".
The Big Takeover - issue #37
Fluff Records' supposedly last gasp before they call it quits is this debut
album by Hood, which comes across as sounding like Guided By Voices' outtakes.
The record is interesting while at the same time a bit of a hard listen;
it's certainly not one to put on when t rying to go to bed at night, or
when trying to romance your next door neighbor. But when they stick to a
song longer than 30 seconds, Hood can really deliver some great space-age
lo-fi melodies, which alone make it worth the price of the record.
-Lauren Axelrod
NME - April 2001
lift, brighton
deliberately
vague record sleeves. austere swathes of elemental avant rock, punctuated
by barely audible vocals. in the past, hood have seemed determined to project
as little image as possible.
however, this illusion of the band as leeds' answer to godspeed! is shattered
when you encounter hood in the flesh. rather than four horsemen of the post-rock
apocalypse, they turn out to be unassuming chaps who happily confess to
dreams of TOTP appearances. perhaps inevitably, the fragile landscapes of
1999's 'the cycle of days and seasons' opus have been suitably reinforced
with robust drumming and a heightened sense of rock dynamics.
this isn't to say that hood have simply pilfered the blueprints laid out
by long-time contemporaries mogwai. when they subtly incorporate elements
of dub, they evoke the unlikely image of arab strap, let loose in lee perry's
black ark, although the end result is still spiritually located in northern
britain rather then sunny jamaica. elsewhere, the influence of former collaborator
third eye foundation manifests itself when hood utilise jittery drum patterns
and eerie keyboards.
with a fine new lp, 'home is where it hurts' in the racks, hood's anonymity
may yet be sacrificed for the recognition they deserve. here's hoping.
-olly thomas
The Guardian - 30 March 2001
brudenell social club, leeds
rating: ****
the yorkshire town of wetherby is in the middle of nowhere, so remote that
the under-the-microscope leeds united are able to train there. the settlement
is surrounded by miles of fields, woodlands and ancient railway tracks;
if you stop in the fields you'll hear birds singing and the electric pylons
buzzing. on a good day, when they've left their windows open, you'll hear
the sounds of hood.
hood are, as far as i'm aware, the only band ever to come out of wetherby.
their location underpins their music, which is impressive, sometimes breathtakingly
atmospheric, and has an eerie emotional power and vast electrical charge
- if the pylons formed a pop group, this would be it. instead the big music
is made by four young men in t-shirts and jeans. but hood's nondescript
appearance matters not a jot. strategically placed bulbs project the players'
shadows onto a backdrop of the wetherby sky. it's cheap but visually stunning.
thus primed, hood craft their spell.
they're rooted in the best leftfield music of the past 20-odd years - from
joy division and pil to warp electronica - but manage to sound both timeless
and individual. sometimes it feels as though there are several bands onstage
at once, such is the collage of dance grooves, jazz layers and sonic dubs.
guitarist/vocalist chris adams's whispered words are more a texture than
a commanding voice, but the best of their rhythms and melodies are as catchy
as atomic kitten's.
with adams's bassist brother richard pounding his foot into the floor,
their intensity certainly sets them apart. however, they're not without
sly humour. one of their songs considers sabotage of the great north eastern
railway so a partner can't leave. confronted by a technical problem, adams
self-effacingly jokes that it's hardly surprising their new single, home
is where it hurts, only costs a pound.
they do themselves down. their final number mutates into an unearthly primal
scream of extraordinary, priceless power. of course, hood pose no threat
to westlife, but they do offer a brilliant alternative to a tired mainstream.
this is music of the spheres, far above the madding crowd.
hood play the arts cafe, london e1 (020-7247 5681), tonight, and the lift,
brighton (01273 776961), tomorrow.
-dave simpson
Melody Maker
Hope & Anchor, London 1998
As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, Hood don't give a shit. What time are
they due on tonight? Shrug. Are they headlining or what? Shrug. Their uncertainty
is understandable. Brought in from Bristol as last-minute substitutes, they've
only known about the gig for about 10 minutes more than I have. But that's
OK with Hood. They don't give a shit. When they do get on- fashionably late,
second on the bill (to the divine Gauge, but Neil Kulkarni has already told
you all about them), augmented by The Third Eye Foundation on decks- I instantly
remember how much I've missed them.
Tonight, they're shockingly well organised and reek of, or rather rock with, self-discipline. "Discipline's what the world need today, baby" as Prince Far-I once said, and Hood heed him well. They accelerate through the emotional chicanery of their fantastically fraught songs like a Lambourghini on ice. The brooding openings are fragile but threatening at the same time, the cathartic climaxes steeped in isolated beauty. Visceral breakdowns pile up on each other in a set of stop-start brilliance. They sing, picking at the words like loose threads in a much-loved jumper, unraveling them and then becoming furious with the remains.
The music is gorgeous.
You don't get this good by practising. You don't get this good at all. You simply are this good, or you never will be. Hood can never be anything else. They've a lot not to give a shit about