ERNEST HOOD

Neighbourhoods

FREEDOM TO SPEND

7/10

Labour of love restores Portlandish private press

Ernest Hood’s notoriety in his own neighbourhood arrived chiefly at the end of his life, when – immobilised by the polio-related conditions he endured since childhood – he sucessfully campaigned, in 1995, for a right to end it. As this lovingly curated reissue attests, that life had been spent ’til then quietly working in music (as jazz player, radio DJ and club owner), and in venerating his locality artistically, cultivating an interest in local features like Portland’s covered bridges. His 1975 private press album, in which Hood marries bright Vince Guaraldi-like instrumental sketches on keyboard, synth and zither with found environmental sounds, has built a reputation as an early ambient classic. Rather than bring his mood to your environment, though, Hood seems to have been more concerned with drawing you into a virtual representation of his own. Things can teeter on the edge of twee, but for the most part (particularly “August Haze”), the mixture of textures, birdsong, tunes and distant trains make Hood’s neighbourhood sound like a place where John Fahey guests with the early Boards Of Canada. “It saddens me that commercial music purveyors of today give such scant consideration to the enrichment of your gentle spirit,” Hood wrote to his audience in the sleevenotes. Here, such consideration flows charmingly and scenically forth. Extras: None.