Sound Collector - reprinted with permission from issue 6
free cd included with a previously unreleased track by hood 'ghosts by japan'

bedrooms amplified
the curious ramblings of hood
by laris kreslins

if hues and shades are the company you keep, then hood are a new color. they're informed by their peers third eye foundation, movietone and crescent (not to mention the conscious/subconscious influence of their vast record collections). hood have created a strong output spanning roughly eleven years. they've done something good. something right. the contempo-psych-folk/bedroom electronic noodling of their friends have influenced hood's creative process. hood express their sincerity in melody and aural texture underutilized in most rockish constructions in the recent past. hood are a minimal call-and-response in action, realized by various players in the most simple and understated manner. subdued horn drones played in a 'normal style' (meaning in a sincere high school concert band manner with awkwardly off tones). their orchestrated elements are not performed by virtuoso players yet the results are innovative none the less. incidental embellishments set moods. no song is over-done. production at times seems shoddy. especially in terms of drum sounds that combine oddly with electronic elements that makes their creations more organic. hood have married all genres and subgenres from purist pop to outward electronic cutup excurions. white dub by white kids. not a dis but the truth.

what follows is an e-mail exchange with hood's richard adams.

the power of the incidental. how important are the 'non-musical' elements in your music?
fairly important i guess. we have policies about the whole package/image of the band and the records we make. we want to have the same edge in the packaging of the records as we have in the music itself. as i've said a billion times you have this opportunity for people to see what is in effect a piece of art. so why not utilize it.

how do you utilize tape? would you consider the tape maching an instrument?
the way you can utilize the recording medium is something we're interested in. we've pretty much experimented with everything ranging from pure analog recordings, tape splicing and looping to taking things into the digital domain or even using a sampler just to sample phrases and building something entirely new out of snapshots of sound. i think that although analogue does still sound better, the affordability of digital and the fluidity and open-endedness of the format has attracted us to it. i think with digital there's so much scope for manipulation of the recorded sound via editing and effects manipulation that it is becoming even more of an instrument than tape ever was to us. for example, we've worked on tracks for the new lp, which have used a simple loop from one of our songs and via editing and re-editing have made entirely new pieces, which i find really exciting.

can you lay out some rules hood uses for the use of effects?
no flager. no reverb. no delay (except dub delay). no gated snare. [use] as few effects as possible on guitars.

how lo or how hi is your fi? is the result financial or aesthetic?
i think both. we are definitely limited financially in what we can do but have found that it is extremely important to keep a rawness to what we do. we could effectively work on theings for a lot longer than we do but we tend to find that we reach a stage where ther on't be any benefits except perhaps smoothing the sound out. we tend to leave things after a awhile or else we'd end up sounding totally overblown and desperate to appeal to people like radiohead do.

what are you not influenced by?
contentedness, post-rock, london, record labels, the english music press.

what have been the results of your community and camaraderie among your peers?
the use of talented musicians who dust down their rotting instruments to help out. getting influenced by people we would not usually hear. utilizing negative influences to positive effect. knowing what is right and what is wrong.

how are elements of 'dub' utilized in your creative process?
it depends on what exactly you mean by dub. to me that means not necessarily thinking that the music you've put on to tape is the end product. in that case dub is a major part of what we do. not just in the traditional sense of the desk as an instrument (dropouts, tape delays, etc.), but in reprogramming and re-appropriating our music. we've been recording stuff of late where we've had it in mind to just record the basic track and leave the main creative process to the post-production/mixing stage.

can you provide us with one of those mojo-style family trees for the band?
we've had a spinal-tap-esque amound of people in this band! and isn't it better to keep a bit of a mystery about it?

what is your view on the 'electonica movement?'
sometimes inspiring, often horribly mediocre. i think a lot of people are getting respect for doing very little. i'm still primarily concerned with the band aesthetic and bothering to use real instruments and trying to push things. there's so many people just going over the same ground and so many poor records in electronica that i think people need to start re-assessing it. i think because a lot of the records use sounds and textures people are unaccustomed to - it becomes difficult to critically assess them and see through the bullshit. a lot of it is just lazy rubbish. we're basically catering to the one percent who want to dig a little deeper, take in the influences but also move it on. just get a copy of the max software by cycling '74 and reaktor by native instruments and you won't buy another electronica record!

what has matt elliot [third eye foundation] taught you? what have you taught matt?
we taught matt how to drink alcohol. matt taught us about the ladies.

same question as above, replace matt elliot with richard formby [dakota suite, spectrum].
richard formby smile patiently when we try and teach him something he already knows. an all-encompassing father figure. there is nothing he doesn't know already.

what element of hood did stewart anderson [555 records, empress, steward] take with him when he went on to do boyracer?
edginess. energy. musical ability.

it seems like you belive in the power of the single. is this a financial restriction or something deeper?
erm well i think singles are fun. they're cheap to buy and cheap to make. you can mess about a bit more with their format. for example, we've done a couple of 7"s that have come across as mini lps with maybe seven or eight songs on them. i think they're underused for this kind of thing.

how is it working by sibling collaboration?
fine, we can back each other us when our parents ask us why we're such ne'er-do-wells.

what are some of the most difficult limitations faced by hood musically?
having to work day jobs and not having the time to work on the music as [much as] we'd wish.

how did you hook up with aesthetics, why the move from slumberland/drop beat?
well, we were never really on dropbeat. we did a remix 12" for them and downpour did a record for them although our first two hood records came out on slumberland, which is related to dropbeat. it was all to do with record company politics. it pains me that our last two records didn't come out in the u.s. but aesthetics rescued us from the abyss and i'm eternally grateful.

how do you perceive the importance of words/lyrics within your songs?
we wouldn't claim to be poest. the lyrics must sit well with the music but they are not top priority. but we must remember that a good lyric makes a good melody even better.

how important is 'pop' to you? how conscious are you of the creaton of melody? i think it's been accurated pointed out that you subvert pop constructs while managing to capture an angelic mess that straddles the line between pop and experimental structures.
melody is vital. without this we could cease to exist - it's the only thing that keeps us going sometimes. we're as interested in destiny's child as we are in stockhausen. it's all good music to us. i hate music without melody - always have. you can't beat a good tune. it's what makes the world go round.

in there democracy in hood?
not really - it's a thinly veiled dictatorship! we encourage other to be creative within the structure of the band but at the end of the day we make all the decisions. when i say we i mean chris and me. having said that, we value the input of the other members.

what does the future hold for home recording? or better yet, how has new technology aided your musical endeavors?
well i think home recording is becoming more accessible to more and more people. but whilst there are lots of interesting things happening, i also think that a lot of more traditional ideas are getting lost, i.e. the band aesthetic, chance, improvisation, etc. as the process can become more insular. i mean, why hire out some big warehouse, get a load of musicians together, mike them up, lower a piano in, learn the tracks, argue, break things, miss work, alienate your loved ones, etc. when you can do the whole thing inside your computer! at the end of the day, it's the way technology is going; everyone's just sitting in front of their computers all day. i find myself listening to early dead c recordings or crescent just to stay a bit more focussed and to remember how other people do things. as for how it's aided our musical endeavors, to me it mainly just keeps the interest ther and it allows us to work in the different ways i've mentioned previously. it has enable us to record more freely and allows us to experiment withough half an eye on the clock. having said all that, probably the best way we've been aided by technology is by the internet as it's allowd us to hook up with and bounce ideas off of like-minded people regardless of distance/cost etc.