Hood formed in Leeds during December 1990 and to date, they have released 9 albums and 17 singles on a variety of different labels. Their last album, the incredibly diverse and well-recieved 'Cold House' bridged the gap between electronics, hip-hop and indie and went on to become one of the most accomplished albums of the year.

The band have just released their latest EP, 'The Lost You' and release their new album 'Outside Closer' in January - both through Domino. We got the chance to talk with member Richard Adams about Hood's influences, collaborations and recording their latest album.

For more information, check out the official Hood site.

Hi Richard, thanks for talking the time to talk to us...

No problem.

You've just released your new long awaited EP, 'The Lost You'. Can You tell us a bit about it?

Well one of the songs is off the new LP 'Outside Closer', which is out in January and the other 4 are songs which didn't make it onto the LP for one reason or another. They were all recorded in the same sessions as the LP. There's also a video on the CD for 'The Lost You' that we did ourselves... its also been released on a double 7" which was a first for us.

I read somewhere that 'The Lost You' EP was really commercial sounding compared to your back catalogue, yet I always thought you were. 'Cold House' especially had some great commercial tracks on there, do you feel your music is accessible?

To me it is but my tastes are a little askew - I think if I heard music like that on the radio I'd get pretty excited - we all love a good pop tune - I think lop sided pop music is my favourite form of music... stuff that's just slightly left of centre but has weird little hooks and unexpected things happening.

Did you try and be less "difficult" with the new album at all?

Yes we did. We didn't want to give anyone any excuse not to get into it - actually that's what we tried with 'Cold House' in a completely different way. In the past we had made records that we thought were great but seemed to put some people off - songs too lo-fi, too long, too short, too noisy, too quiet etc. We're not afraid to be commercial and accessible. They are not dirty words as long as the music is good and you believe in it and it stays close to your aims.

'Cold House' was really well-recieved and pretty much flawless, did you feel any pressure to deliver something equally as impressive?

At first it didn't bother me - we were raring to go on new stuff - but as the years passed I started getting a little freaked out by it. The old thing of "well if that ones so good how can we ever do anything better so what's the point?" - the key to it is simply to stop thinking about it. We try and make every album like it's the first and last album we'll ever make. We're the band with 6 debut albums. If you start thinking about the past too much you'll drive yourself nuts.

With 'Cold House' you incorporated everything from post-rock and indie, to hip-hop and electronics...what has influenced the 'Outside Closer' recordings?

I think trying to get right away from that glitchy type sound - less electronics but still having the music sound new fresh and exciting. I guess the way R & B records are cut up and pieced together is the prime influence on some of the material. We're big fans of The Neptunes. But also, we've been thinking about the great mid-eighties albums with sweeping strings and rain drenched quality by people like The Go Betweens, The Smiths and The Blue Nile. We take influences from all over & hopefully what comes out the other end of the pipe is at least interesting.

The last album had some contributions from Dose One and Why? of the Anticon label, how did that come about?

They got in touch with us when they were just starting out as by some amazing fluke of nature they owned all the older Hood albums. We'd always wanted to use MC's but feared it would end up sounding like Eminem on an Elton John record. But they kind of intrinsically just knew what to do and it all worked out.

Does the new album feature any collaborations?

Only with people we've found under stones in Leeds and nearby... there's a guy who usually plays Cuban music on there, doing some of the strings and one of the Remote Viewer boys appears alongside some other people we just kind of knew. We're not usually ones for name collaborations - we sometimes like to use unsung heroes.

There was a mention of live dates to support the LP?

There will be next year - this year kind of drew to a close far too quickly so there's just a few one offs. Next year we're supposed to tour like the rock behemoth that we undoubtedly are...

Any truth in the rumours you're going to be working with Pedro on some future music?

Well hopefully. There was talk of him coming up to help on one or two tracks on this LP but I never dared play him anything until it was done so it was kind of pointless! We'd like to do something with him at some time in the future.

I heard another exciting rumour that Prefuse 73 is involved with the new album? If not would you ever collaborate with him?

No he's not involved, it's probably just that we've ripped him off! To be honest as a producer he's out of our league. We would be flailing and flapping in his wake. The guy is a genius and I think its best just to leave him to carry on doing what he's doing.

Not to speak ill of your earlier releases, but the last few years you seem to have really developed your own, unique sound... do you prefer making music as Hood 1990 or Hood 2004?

I think making music in 1990 was more fun - churning out loads of songs very quickly - but now its more rewarding long term. But you do lose sight of what it was you liked about the songs in the first place. The spontenaity has gone, but I think because we work longer and harder on things (hopefully) the end results are better.

What's the strangest thing you've read about the band? Mine was hearing about a new experimental cLOUDDEAD offshoot project called Hood.

That's incredible. I once read that we'd all moved to Bristol. Don't know where that came from.

As we're rapidly drawing up to the end of the year, what have you been favourite records of 2004?

For the bulk of the year I've been so engrossed in this record that I haven't really been able to listen to anything else. I'm slowly starting to come back into the real world and have to report that the Khonnor album 'Handwriting' is my favourite of the year. I also liked the Sufjan Stevens album, the Brian Wilson 'Smile' thing and a few others that I can't remember. I've been playing loads of old stuff Public Image Limited, The Clash... just anything that sounds nothing like us.

Thanks for the chat, can't wait for the album...