"Robert Hood's Motor: Nighttime World 3 has the power to make me lose my sense of time altogether."
Every Saturday throughout New York's long hot summer, MoMA PS1 presents Warm Up, the museum's annual courtyard party that celebrates music's experimental spirit. Each week, The FADER will be speaking to one of the billed artists to find out who they're psyched about playing with. This week, Vatican Shadow mastermind and Hospital Productions labelhead Dominick Fernow writes a love letter to the pounding, minimalist grooves of Detroit techno pioneer and Underground Resistance co-founder Robert Hood, profiled in our 87th issue.
My recommendation for MOMA PS1's Warm Up 2014 series this week is the legendary Robert Hood. So much has already been said regarding his historical significance that I won't attempt to add, but will rather speak of his importance through personal experience. I've recently started running for exercise, and while doing so I had found it almost impossible to listen to music, as it felt too time based and made me feel like each pace I took was in slow motion. I had been resigned to the idea that no music could ever overcome this sensation, and had resorted to running to books on tape, usually about History.
However, Robert Hood's Motor: Nighttime World 3 is the first album I have been able to run to, and train with, because it has the power to make me lose my sense of time altogether. It has a way of allowing me to sink into a steady pace, the steady momentum of the electronics mirroring the physicality of my training. While his older classics are, of course, just that, I'm particularly fond of this 2012 album, with its brilliant ability to evoke a daytime atmosphere and a sunny feeling, despite its title. Plus, who else could make a clap sequence, like the one in "Torque One," into a memorable "melody"?