Domino Records to “Recollect” and Reissue Hood’s Albums, EPs, Unreleased

Thank goodness for Twitter: I had just tweeted about something or other and received a recommendation to follow Hood, one of the bands on Opus’ “must hear” list. I wasn’t even aware that Hood was on Twitter: in fact, I was rather surprised by that since the band’s been on extended hiatus since releasing 2005’s Outside Closer, its members focused on various side projects (e.g., Bracken, The Declining Winter). But of course I began following Hood and was instantly rewarded with some excellent news.

On December 5, Domino will release Recollected, a six-disc box set containing Hood’s four albums, various singles and EPs, and a disc of unreleased material.

This isn’t the first Hood compilation out there — see 2003’s Compilations 1995 – 2002 and Singles Compiled — but this is the first time that Hood’s proper albums, some of which can be difficult to find, have been reissued (and remastered, even). Personally, I’m more intrigued by the collection of EPs and singles (Hood has released a number of them over the years, and I’ve only heard a handful) and The Hood Tapes, which has never been officially released and, according to this review, consists of lo-fi recordings made in 2004 and 2005. Also:

Listening to this album, you get the idea it seems to be almost a project of Chris Adams alone, alone in his bedroom / playroom. The songwriting is more melancholic, more direct, personal, intense and intimate. It is Hood as a solo project and the links with Disco Inferno are here very prominent and the mood is even darker, honestly sometimes not so far from S or Havergal.

Here’s the complete track listing:

Disc 1: Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys

1. S.E. Rain Patterns
2. Boer Farmstead
3. The Light Reveals The Place
4. Your Ambient Voice
5. The Leaves Grow Old And Fall And Die
6. Diesel Pioneers

Disc 2: The Cycle Of Days And Seasons

1. Western Housing Concerns
2. Hood Is Finished
3. //
4. September Brings the Autumn Dawn
5. In Iron Light
6. How Can You Drag Your Body Blindly Through?
7. Houses Tilting Towards The Sea
8. //
9. Roads Lead Northwards
10. //
11. …The Cliff Edge Of Workaday Morality

Disc 3: Cold House

1. They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here
2. You Show No Emotion At All
3. When Branches Bare
4. Enemy Of Time
5. The Winter Hit Hard
6. I Can’t Find My Brittle Youth
7. This Is What We Do To Sell Out
8. The River Curls Around The Town
9. Lines Low To Frozen Ground
10. You’re Worth The Whole World

Disc 4: Outside Closer

1. (intro)
2. The Negatives
3. Any Hopeful Thoughts Arrive
4. End Of One Train Working
5. Winter 72
6. The Lost You
7. Still Rain Fell
8. L.Fading Hills
9. Closure
10. This Is It, Forever

Disc 5: Collected EPs

1. Useless
2. Home is Where it Hurts
3. Cold Fire Woods of Western Lanes
4. The World Touches Too Hard
5. Its Been a Long Time Since I Was Last Here
6. Across the Lonely Writing Sid
7. Painting the Town Dead
8. Ghosts by Japan
9. You Can’t Breathe Memories
10. The Rest of Us Still Care
11. By Island Lake (Excerpt)
12. Over the land, Over the Sea
13. Squint in the First Light of Day
14. The Sad Decline of Home
15. The Fact that You Failed
16. The Sea Against the Sand

Disc 6: The Hood Tapes

1. The Hurting World
2. Greydayer
3. When We Wait All The Tables
4. Driven Out by Angry Villager
5. Loss and L.E.D
6. Names For Rain
7. But I was Only a Bystander
8. This Years First Storm
9. Maple
10. Winter Politics
11. Sad Neck
12. None of the Above
13. Leave like the Ghost You Are
14. Photographers
15. Winter Will Set You Back
16. Late Farming
17. You Shins Break My Heart
18. Having the Loudest Hailer
19. Guess My Age
20. Hym to the Hill
21. The Second Thought Abandoned
22. Before we get swept away.…
23. Stone and Height
24. Points of Disintegration

Below, watch the videos for “You Show No Emotion At All” and “The Negatives.”