Hood

Hood is a great band. With the same creative flexibility as Labradford and the same awareness of silence and noise and Toby Driver, this band is so easy on the ears that their spot in the music world is unquestionable. With a bit of shoegaze, a bit of electronica, a bit of ambience and a bit of glitch, Hood is one of my newer favourite bands that I was lucky enough to discover through Last.fm (people should start paying me for all this free marketing.) They formed in Leeds, sometime around December 1990, and unfortunately have decided not to bring out any other releases, which isn't surprising since they've been around for a really long time, but have gone pretty much unnoticed. The band is comprised of brothers Richard and Chris Adams, with a large number of other participants dropping in and out over the years. Two of my favourite albums include Home is Where It Hurts, one of their best songs having the same name, and Outside Closer, particularly with a song called Closure. There's a certain soothing nature about their sound that puts you out first listen, sort of like when you've been standing over an open bucket of paint for too long. I was very pleasantly surprised by this band. What these guys do with their instrumentals, which include beautiful melodies on acoustic guitars with a very Elbow-like feel, and the odd female vocal which could pass as a Sonic Youth track, always leaves me wondering what will be next. Very cool, very chilled.