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When one thinks of that cumbersomely inclusive descriptor that is “electronic” music or “electronica” more often than not the average person conjures the image of some fist-pumping 18 year olds sucking on lollipops and pacifiers at a “rave” (perhaps the most misunderstood musical phenomena ever, but that’s a rant for another day). Robert Hood, however, is here to break that mold. As founding father of that elusive genre “minimalist” electronic music which for so long went unacknowledged, Hood has done well to bring electronic music back to its roots and original intentions by bringing a refreshingly cerebral approach to electronic music with a thorough thematic production that gives the listener an enrapturing experience on his recently released album Omega.
When I talk about bringing electronic music back to its roots, I’m far from exaggerating. Like fellow Detroit native Carl Craig, Robert Hood brings out a sound which resonates with the first electronic music artists whom, arguably, spawned the musical genre in my nearby hometown metropolis of Detroit. Robert Hood is a founding member of group Underground Resistance as a ‘Minister Of Information’ with Mad Mike Banks & Jeff Mills. Hood has worked under the names Monobox, Inner Sanctum, The Vision, among many other aliases as he continually searches to define his inner voice and sound. Robert Hood is no chump when it comes to the electronic music game and his most recent full length album Omega is a shining example of that.
Donald Judd Untitled (six boxes)
Let’s start with the good, for it far outweighs the bad. This album from concept to conception is beautifully done; it is rare I find an album that catches my attention with a central theme or motif that defines the tracks but lets the music speak for itself overall. Hood’s Omega is set (almost as if yes, it was a movie set) in a post-apocalyptic world that is more or less already Detroit. It has a superfuture feel to it that begs comparisons to works like Tron, Terminator, Blade Runner and of course Robocop. This comes as no surprise when you realize that Omega is actually Hood’s interpretation of a soundtrack for the 1971 Charleston Heston post-apocalyptic classic The Omega Man. All this along with Hoods thoughts on The Omega Man provide crucial context for the album in much the same way a minimalist installation like those of Donald Judd can be extremely difficult to fully understand without some context of the artist’s intentions and the artistic movements that it is in dialogue with. So says Hood:
“I feel like I prophetically see the world and the way it’s headed. Just standing from a watcher’s perspective, and just watching politics, watching the economy, watching oil spills on the Gulf Coast, and the ecology, and feeling like I see something coming and nobody else is really paying attention to it and it’s like I’m already living there. Imagine, say in thirty years from now, this is what it is but I’m living there now. People don’t even realize where we are, and I have to snap myself out of it and say no, we’re not there yet, you’re getting ahead of yourself. But it weighs heavy on my heart. Watching Charlton Heston in this world where, like you said, he thinks he’s the only one, it just resonates with me.” Source
The complexities of Hood’s otherwise very uncomplicated ‘minimalist’ sound then become much more apparent, something I have great respect for.
Perhaps the only downfall of all this is what also is it’s unique strength: minimalism. As much as I think Hood does a terrific job of creating profound meaning for something where there may seem at first glance there is not much there, at the end of the day some of the tracks on Omega are just a little to repetitive and seem out of place. This may be due to my relative lack of familiarity with the entirety of the growing “minimalist” movement but it is my first impression nonetheless. Tracks like “Alpha” and “Towns That Disappeared Completely” starts to just grind on my ears and the thought of listening to more than two or three of those repetitive sounding tracks on one album is almost too much to bear. Without Hood’s fantastic sense of composition and creativity, Omega would no doubt fall apart.
But it doesn’t, and so I recommend it highly. Hood’s unique artistic vision and sense of the future we are already living in makes for a terrific album. Omega often feels like an auditory version of the movie it is meant to compliment and captures an apocalyptic superfuture sound which can be haunting.
Give the album a listen and enjoy. To download right-click and “save as”.
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Robert Hood-The Workers of Iniquity
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Interview with Robert Hood from TV.Jekyllethyde.fr on Vimeo.
