Robert Hood - Omega Alive

Robert Hood
Omega Alive
M-Plant

Robert Hood is a true godfather of techno. He was a founding member of Underground Resistance, one of the three ‘Ministers Of Information’. He is also one of the most prolific artists in techno, with around ten albums and 40 EP's to his name.

Today’s emerging artists have embraced the album format in a wholly different way to their predecessors. The template championed by labels like R&S offered artists an opportunity to simply collect their dancefloor bangers onto a single, car-journey-friendly, CD. Recent efforts from artists like Zomby on the other hand have meant a chance to wipe the slate of previous releases clean and produce a coherent body of work that makes more sense as a whole but perhaps contains less dancefloor action. ‘Omega Alive’ from Robert Hood definitely takes the former approach. You get twelve tracky minimalistic (note, not minimal) club bombs that feel very much like a variation of one of Hood’s own sets.  Relative to most techno there is sufficient diversity to keep the LP interesting though. Alpha: Alive is one of the standout tracks, teaming trance-inducing melodic sections with paired down techno grooves. Tracks like The Family, on the other hand, aim more for the peaktime, hands-in-the-air market. Listening through, I suspect that much of the album was programmed using Hood’s favoured Akai XR20 drum machine and QY200 sequencer combination, a setup he uses alongside vinyl to augment his DJ sets. As a result there is a loose, uninhibited and intuitive feel to the arrangements.

Robert Hood "Alpha: Alive" preview by epm-music

 As a listening experience purely, the album doesn’t always succeed, and the inclusion of obvious dancefloor tools like Minimal, Minimal would make Omega:Alive a less than ideal accompaniment to your average Friday night in with the missus. On the other hand that’s not really what this album sets out to do. It’s a collection of grooves that are there to be danced to, pure and simple. 

Omega:Alive is available on M-Plant records here.

Robert Hood on Pulse.