Four singles
(Lee Faust Million Piece Orchestra, A Harbor Of Thoughts,
I've Forgotten How T Live, Secrets Now Know) occupy most of
1996. Little space is left for the 26 tracks of
Silent '88 (Slumberland, 1996), a far less engaging copy of the debut
album, but equally violent and better produced.
Structured Disasters (Happy Go Lucky, 1997) collects the singles
from 1992 till 1996.
The six lengthy pieces of Rustic Houses Forlorn Valleys (Domino, 1998), six tender poems that scour the soul for flickers of emotion, revealed a
completely different band, one that was introverted and almost mystical in
its approach to music.
S.E. Rain Patterns, whose jangling lament emerges from four minutes of distant droning, straddles the "slo-core" border between the Red House Painters and Talk Talk,
while The Light Reveals The Place, whose suave melody is caressed by a tenuous clarinet and pierced by a distorted guitar, updates My Bloody Valentine's shoegazing rock to the Necks' infinite jamming.
The 13-minute Diesel Pioneers is the transcendental zenith of the album, at least from the initial cosmic "om" to the hymn-like chant, before an inept
hard-rock jamming destroys all the magic.
Matt Elliot of the Third Eye Foundation guests
and does little that is immediately visible but may have been an inspiration.
Many of the ideas were intriguing, but the implementation was amateurish at best.
More singles followed: The Year Of Occasional Lull (Rocket Racer, 1998),
The Weight (555, 1998) and
Filmed Initiative (Happy Go Lucky, 1998).
When an album finally surfaced,
The Cycle Of Days And Season (Domino, 1999), it was a
disappointing follow-up to Rustic Houses Forlorn Valleys.
It seemed that, whenever Hood came up with a
good idea, they couldn't resist wasting it in a needless and inferior repetition.
The mini-album Home Is Where It Hurts (aesthetics, 2000) fared much
better.
Home Is Where It Hurts is a jewel of mixing acoustic guitar and
samples of instruments and vocals and the result is remiscent of the new wave.
Cold Fire Woods of Western Lanes is also a simple tune,
but set on fire by loud instruments.
The Fact That You Failed toys with dub and industrial noise.
If these tracks represent the "light" side of Hood's art, the other two are
the real thing.
Drum machines shake The World Touches Too Hard from the hypnosis of
drones of strings, horns and guitar reverbs.
It's Been A Long Time Since I was Last Here is a veritable melodrama,
orchestrated in a complex and effective manner.
Hood achieved their masterpiece with
Cold House (Aesthetics, 2001), thanks to a sophisticated
mixture of three carefully-dosed elements. First, it's the melodies:
plaintive, romantic, tender, melancholy. Second, the acoustic instruments:
trumpet, cello, piano, violin, sax. Third (and foremost), the layers
of cutting-edge electronica, digital clicks and fractured beats.
If that melodic style had already been premiered on Rustic Houses Forlorn Valleys, and if the instrumental tapestry had been already tested on Home Is Where It Hurts, the electronic/digital element was a new layer added to their ever more intricate art.
The more visible result were lukewarm and melancholy bedroom-oriented pop songs
such as the jangling You Show No Emotion At All and the dreamy
This Is What We Do To Sell Out(s)
that were undermined by a fragile polyphony of tentative guitar sounds,
skipping beats, brittle sound effects, shy vocals.
But, at a subtler level, the album was an unlikely hybrid of ambient pop and
glitch music,
of latter-day Talk Talk
and Autechre,
of trip-hop and Robert Wyatt.
The more avantgarde songs seemed to reach for another dimension, like the
psychedelic bands of the 1960s at the peak of the transcendental vogue:
the celestial strumming and acid vocals of The River Curls Around the Town,
the abstract, dilated chant with dub-like percussion of The Winter Hit Hard
the detached chamber music of They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here and
the most Wyatt-ian piece, You're Worth The Whole World (virtually a
leftover of End Of An Ear).
Even the simpler tunes, such as Lines Low To Frozen Ground and With Branches Bare (reminiscent of Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence), sounded extra-terrestrial after the Hood treatment.
With this album Hood reinvented themselves one more time, this time as a digital
dance-folk project.
After the EP You Show No Emotion At All (Domino, 2002),
Compilations 1995-2002 (Misplaced Music) and
Singles Compiled (Misplaced Music) are anthologies.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da Daniele Meneghel)
Quattro singoli (Lee Faust Million Piece Orchestra, A Harbor Of Thoughts, I've Forgotten How To Live, Secrets Now Know) occupano la maggior parte del 1996. Viene lasciato un po' di spazio per le 26 tracce di Silent '88 (Slumberland, 1996), una copia molto meno accattivante dell album di debutto, ma ugualmente violento e meglio prodotto.
Structured Disasters (Happy Go Lucky, 1997) raccoglie i singoli dal 1992 fino al 1996.
Rustic Houses Forlorn Valleys (Domino, 1998) rivela una band completamente diversa, che ha le sue radici nel folk-rock malinconico degli anni sessanta e nella scuola di Canterbury dei settanta. Anche se l'ospite Matt Elliot dei Third Eye Foundation è incaricato di far esplodere ciascuna canzone con sgradevoli rumori, i sei lunghi brani (specialmente Your Ambient Voice, The Leaves Grow Old And Fall And Die e il pezzo di 12 minuti Diesel Pioneers) sono teneri rovistano nell'anima in cerca di emozioni.
Seguirono molti singoli: The Year Of Occasional Lull (Rocket Racer, 1998), The Weight (555, 1998), Filmed Initiative (Happy Go Lucky, 1998). The Cycle Of Days And Season (Domino, 1999) è, ancora, un deludente seguito del terzo album. Sembra che, ogni volta che gli Hood se ne escono con una buona idea, abbiano bisogno di una inutile e inferiore ripetizione.
Il mini-album Home Is Where It Hurts (Aesthetics, 2000) va molto meglio. Home Is Where It Hurts è un gioiello di mescolamento di chitarra acustica e campioni di strumenti e voce, e il risultato ricorda la new wave. Anche Cold Fire Woods of Western Lanes è un motivo semplice, ma infuocato da strumenti chiassosi. The Fact That You Failed giocherella con il dub e con l'industrial noise. Se questi pezzi rappresentano il lato "leggero" dell'arte degli Hood, le altre due fanno sul serio. Le drum machines scuotono The World Touches Too Hard dall'ipnosi dei ronzii degli archi, dei corni e dei riverberi di chitarra. It's Been A Long Time Since I was Last Here è un melodramma veritabile, orchestrato in una maniera complessa ed efficace.
Proseguendo nella direzione del "pop sperimentale", gli Hood ottengono il loro capolavoro, Cold House (Aesthetics, 2001). La musica di questo album è un sofisticato miscuglio di tre elementi dosati attentamente. Primo, sono le melodie: lamentose, romantiche, tenere, malinconico. Secondo, gli strumenti acustici: tromba, violoncello, piano, violino, sax. Terzo (e principale), la disposizione a strati dell'elettronica d'avanguardia, scatti digitali e ritmi fratturati. Quello che si ottiene sono canzoni pop come The Winter Hit Hard e This Is What We Do To Sell Out(s) che, sebbene formalmente impeccabili, sono deragliate da delle fondamente sismicamente fragili. L'intero album è un improbabile ibrido di ambient dub e glitch music, Talk Talk dei giorni nostri e Autechre, noir pop e Canterbury jazz-rock, A R Kane e Robert Wyatt. Persino i motivi più semplici, come Lines Low To Frozen Ground e Branches Bare (che somiglia a Enjoy The Silence dei Depeche Mode), appaiono extraterrestri dopo il trattamento degli Hood.
Il metodo è straordinariamente efficace nei pezzi d'avanguardia: The River Curls Around the Town, They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here, ed il brano più wyattiano, You're Worth The Whole World (virtualmente un rimasuglio di End Of An Ear). Così male che, inquinando il loro pastorale paesaggio sonoro con la nevrosi urbana, le collaborazioni hip-hop rovinano l'atmosfera, che è per il resto pura magia.
Gli Hood hanno architettato un album al confine tra fututro e passato che risulta molto più inventivo e commovente del, diciamo, immensamente sopravvalutato Vespertine di Bjork (giusto per menzionare un altro album che sposa avanguardia e pop).
Segue l' EP You Show No Emotion At All (Domino, 2002).
Compilations 1995-2002 (Misplaced Music) e Singles Compiled (Misplaced Music) sono antologie.
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