“Due to an unmanageable abundance of music, a diminishing amount of free time, and shorter attention spans, the new approach to selling records is to remind listeners of records they probably would have liked had they heard them the first time they were released.”
~ Joel Hanson
Guest contributors David Agasi, Joel Hanson (of Memory Drawings), and band member Richard Adams share their reflections on the anniversary of Hood’s 2001 landmark post-rock work Cold House—an album that combined “a classic alternative rock sound with cutting edge electronica and West Coast hip-hop.”
David Agasi:
Cold House in 2001
Cold House was probably my first introduction to Hood’s music, released in the autumn of 2001, immediately following Y2K hysteria and the attack on the World Trade Center. I had just visited Japan and was planning to relocate there with my girlfriend, Tomoko. We both had temporary living accommodations in Berkeley, CA and were attempting to live out some final hedonistic scenarios only possible in California before our impending international flight.
KALX FM was playing the first track of Cold House as Shawn and I were traveling up University Avenue at twilight in his tiny, ancient Toyota pickup, and in that flash of aural recognition, it was inevitable I’d be collecting Hood’s entire discography soon enough. The manic, sampled patchwork of “They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here” seemed to specifically call attention to the ironic flimsiness of current world events at that time, events which, 20 years later, have more or less nailed the coffin shut for all of us.
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