Detroit legend, techno pioneer, Underground Resistance member and all round producer of absolute life-affirming records that get regular spins every weekend across the globe, Robert Hood returns to his Floorplan alias for new album Victorious. Saving these records for his more house side, this time he has enlisted the talents of his daughter Lyric on co-production duties for what must amount to his greatest long-player since Minimal Nation.
Victorious takes in 11 variants of the Robert Hood sound, techno and house with the boundaries blurred but leaning towards a direct and precise surefire gospel-rooted sound. Packed with instant classic gear, Victorious highlights for us have to be The Heavens & The Earth, a classic Rob Hood synapse firing snare heavy, ricocheting clap and a hefty kickdrum techno tune, but with an added church organ looped over and over and over while a subliminal female vocal (possibly Lyric?) preaches about God. Mmm Hmm Hmm take advantage of the alias's freedom for the more house heavy sound by taking what's essentially the backbone of recent classic Hood track Superman and adding some very addictive vocal lines (they will be engrained in your head for hours after the LP's long since finished). While Good Thang is the best record any of us will hear out this weekend and sprinkles in more gospel preaching over a non-stop banger. Much like the title expresses, this is a good thing!
Robert Hood has often transpired his beliefs into music, from the militant stance taken in his early undercover work as part of UR to Floorplan's current religious translation of modern machine-funk. Comparisons have to be drawn with Faithless when he produced God Is A DJ (only in the meaning behind the music not musically we must add!!) Floorplan are using the medium of loop based euphoric music to bring people together and inspire positivity through religious means within dance culture, whether you are religious or not does not matter though as Victorious only really has one job, and it succeeds at that a hundred times over; music to take over the club and everyone in it.
