Hood (band)

History

Hood began with a handful of vinyl singles on tiny independent labels, pressed in very small quantities. Their debut album, Cabled Linear Traction, arrived in 1994 through Fluff and Slumberland Records. Slumberland also put out 1996's Silent '88, and the next year Happy Go Lucky Records released Structured Disasters, a compilation pulling together tracks from their early singles. All of these early records were packed with extremely short songs, many clocking in under a minute, blending indie rock with noisy experiments that recalled Sonic Youth or Pavement, while electronics started creeping into the mix.

In 1997, Domino Records signed the band and issued the single "Useless." Produced by Matt Elliott, better known as the Third Eye Foundation, it was a much more direct and melodic song than anything they had done before. Elliott joined them on tour and produced the albums Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys and The Cycle of Days and Seasons. These records ditched the brief, fragmentary tracks for longer pieces, adopting a pastoral sound reminiscent of Bark Psychosis or Talk Talk. Hood kept releasing singles on other labels too; "The Weight" on 555 Recordings was a throwback, squeezing eight tracks onto a single 7-inch disc.

For their fifth album, 2001's Cold House, Hood teamed up with Doseone and Why? from the Anticon collective. The record mixed post-rock, IDM, and indie with the guests' lyrical work, and included the single "You Show No Emotion at All." In 2003, the band collected most of their stray single and compilation tracks from the years after Structured Disasters on the double CD Singles Compiled and the set Compilations 1995-2002. Neither includes any Domino material, though the singles collection does feature some previously unreleased tracks.

After more lineup changes, Hood released Outside Closer in early 2005, with "The Lost You" and "The Negatives" as singles. Since then, the band toured with Why? promoting his album Elephant Eyelash and put out various remixes, including a version of "The Negatives" with British MC Jehst. Chris started a solo side project called Bracken, releasing the album We Know About the Need on Anticon in 2007. That same year, Richard Adams formed The Declining Winter, issuing a 7-inch single, The Future Sound of Hip Hop parts 1 & 2, and the album Goodbye Minnesota, with more albums to follow on various labels.