- Perhaps even to untrained ears, the differences between the output of Robert Hood and his Floorplan alias are obvious—dystopian austerity on one hand, dance floor celebration on the other. It's always a joy to hear the minimal techno master revel in each project's idiosyncrasies, but joining the two on one vinyl is a treat that Shaker / Ritual presents for the first time. As it happens, this two-track 12-inch actually shows just how much the two aliases speak to each other.
There are distinct rhythmic parallels shared by "Shaker" and "Ritual" that carry Hood's inimitable mark. Both productions maintain an unrelenting rigidness, and with every couple thuds of their steady kicks an off-pattern bounce punctuates the loop. On "Shaker," this means Hood employs hard-squelching FX. Floorplan's "Ritual" transposes the accent to a prismatic synth that's in constant flux around simple claps and ticking hi-hats. Everything is tightly wound for the record's duration, too, with nimble percussion, shifting incidentals and quasi-melodic textures adding to the claustrophobia. A disembodied voice lurks beneath "Shaker"'s heavy churn, and the effect feels like a bastardized Floorplan sample as it coldly repeats, "You understand me now."
TracklistA1 Robert Hood - Shaker
B1 Floorplan - Ritual