Robert Hood

Robert "Noise" Hood makes minimal Detroit techno with an emphasis on soul and experimentation over flash and popularity. Recording for Metroplex, as well as the Austrian Cheap label and Jeff Mills' Axis label, Hood also owns and operates the M-Plant imprint, through which he's released the bulk of his solo material. Hood was a founding member, along with Jeff Mills and Mike Banks, of the Underground Resistance label, whose influential releases throughout the early- and mid-'90s helped change the face of modern Detroit techno and sparked a creative renaissance. Infusing elements of acid and industrial into a potent blend of Chicago house and Detroit techno, UR's aesthetic project and militant business philosophy were (and remain) singular commitments in underground techno. Hood left Detroit (and UR) with Jeff Mills in 1992, setting up shopin New York and recording a series of 12" EPs with Mills. Through the mid-'90s, Hood has focused on his solo work, setting up M-Plant in 1994 and releasing singles such as "Internal Empire," "Music Data," and "Moveable Parts." Although his desire to remain underground has been replaced by an urge to reach a wider audience, Hood remains fiercely critical of artistic and economic movements destructive to inner-city communities and has combined his musical enterprises with outreach and social activist ends. In 1994, Berlin's techno-centric Tresor label released his debut full-length, Internal Empire, and Cheap released Nighttime World the following year. During the rest of the decade, Hood focused on DJ dates as well as a string of singles for M-Plant. Finally, in 2000, the second volume in the Nighttime World series appeared on M-Plant. [See Also: the Vision] ~ Sean Cooper, Rovi...

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