Monobox - Forwardbase Kodai

  • Robert Hood dons his Monobox alias to indulge his darker side.
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  • Even for the godfather of minimal techno, Robert Hood's releases as Monobox—from the turn of the millennium, anyway—are striking for both their sparseness and weirdness. Relistening to 2004's "Trade," for example, I was struck by how strange and meandering a track it is: the melody (if we can call it that) is built from notes that sound like a scuba diver's dying breath with a cold, steel kick underneath (no surprise that Ricardo Villalobos was keen to remix it at the height of the mnml moment). For the last decade Hood has focused on the warm, grandeur of Floorplan, alongside his daughter Lyric, the two of them converting us all into believers with bigger and bigger house and techno spirituals. But on his first Monobox release since 2014, Hood changes gears to exorcise his darker and more twisted demons. While the title track captures the cosmically bleak signature of Monobox—the synth keys minor, the chords alien, the drums unrelenting—Hood's other original contribution, "Homestead," is the real Monobox weapon. Hood turns a dub techno loop into something eerie, almost frightening, with pads lifted straight from the cutting room of a Dracula remake soundtrack session. The other two tracks, both remixes of "Forwardbase Kodai," are nothing to scoff at. Hood's "Re-Plant" adds some heft and bulk to the drums, giving it some peak-time energy, and I'd be willing to bet that Ø [Phase]'s spartan, dubby remix received plenty of airtime in warehouses over Halloween weekend. Commenting on Hood's 2003 Monobox album The Molecule, a Discogs user wrote, "[When] the time comes for techno reckoning, no one will be able to say [...] that [Hood] was averse to extremes of experimentation." Forwardbase Kodai continues that tradition. It's hard to imagine Hood being able to play either of his two originals at the festivals he graces every summer. But they're a strong reminder of how good he sounds when he's not in those environs. Safe to say, three decades in and no one makes minimal techno quite like Robert Hood.
  • Tracklist
      91, Forwardbase Kodai 02. Forwardbase Kodai (Ø [Phase] Remix) 03. Forwardbase Kodai (Robert Hood Re-Plant) 04. Homestead
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