Music
Robert Hood
born 1965 · techno producer, DJ
Detroit-born founding member of Underground Resistance who went on to invent the stripped-down sound of minimal techno.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Also known as
- Floorplan · Minister of Information
- Detroit years
- 1965–1992, later ties
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Robert Hood was born in Detroit and first worked alongside “Mad” Mike Banks as Robert Noise, designing artwork for the house collective Members of the House. When Banks and Jeff Mills launched Underground Resistance around 1990, Hood joined as its “Minister of Information”, writing and producing much of the collective's early, militant output; the three also recorded as X-101 and X-102. In 1992 he left Detroit and UR with Mills, recording with him as H&M and X-103 for labels such as Berlin's Tresor. In 1994 he founded the M-Plant label and released Minimal Nation, a spare, repetitive album widely seen as the blueprint of minimal techno. Later he turned toward gospel-infused house under the name Floorplan, starting with “We Magnify His Name”; since 2016 the project has included his daughter Lyric Hood. His career shows how a Detroit sound shaped by Motor City austerity became a global club language.
Highlights
- Founding member of Underground Resistance, the “Minister of Information”.
- Founded the M-Plant label in 1994.
- Minimal Nation (1994) is considered the inspiration for minimal techno.
- Recorded with Jeff Mills as H&M and X-103.
- His gospel-house project Floorplan now includes daughter Lyric Hood.