Title: Alpha Key EP
Artist: Robert Hood
Label: M-Plant
Cat Number: MPM46
Genre: Techno
1: Alpha Key
2: Future Remedy
3: Pathetic
4: Outsider
It’s always with a sense of trepidation that I write about music from one of the grand masters. I would hope the reasons are obvious, so I’ll leave it at that. Suffice to say Robert Hood has been there and done that but, if you’re still out there making music I would hope that you’ve always got something to prove. Techno is, in my opinion, a genre that has to a large extent stagnated, also has something to prove. Does it still have any subtlety, or is it all just steam hammers and kicks. Of course that’s only one facet. It’s a pretty broad church and accommodates much. And on this release, by and large, Rob Hood seems to be going for the relentless, steam hammer approach. Only ‘Future Remedy’, with its arpeggiated, melodic barrel organ on crack approach reminds me of the golden days of M-Plant. However, that’s no bad thing. Because even though those were great times, they can’t be replicated ad nauseam. I believe it is the best track here though, with ‘Alpha Key’ being the best of the rest. It’s a relentless twat of a track, but comes correct with the funk, using a steel drum like beat that rattles over the top, aided and abetted by minor percussive elements, to drive itself skyward. Both ‘Pathetic’ and ‘Outsider’ share similar characteristics; the former being denser and like hacking through a rain forest with a blunt machete, and the latter the soundtrack to riding an epileptic antelope across the Serengeti.
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