Guitarist Ernest Hood issued his musical document of the Portland he knew in 1975. Freedom To Spend is recirculating it. |
Sprawling through a haze of zither, synthesizer melodies, and foraged pedestrian sound, Neighborhoods is both a score and documentary composed and directed by Hood to offer, in his words, joy in reminiscence. Hood’s nostalgic impulse ran parallel to the developments of other artists, writers, and filmmakers of the 1970s who were looking back to the 1950s to convey a collective memory of childhood. Unlike some of the widely embraced work of this nature, the music of Neighborhoods eschews irony or detachment for lucidity, striving above all for a dream-like return to the details of sensory memory.
Ernest Hood |
Whether using environmental sounds or instruments, a sense of musical narration is the central component of Neighborhoods, a strategy Hood tellingly referred to as “musical cinematography” in his original liner notes. Instead of using the picture frame, Hood broadcasts melodies and sounds from his beloved Portland surroundings to transport listeners to the story’s scene. Remarkably, Neighborhoods never falls into the sentimentality trap. Hood’s music augments its indeterminate, “anecdotal” sounds with a blend of zither and synthesizer melodies reminiscent of golden age cinema soundtracks.
In the end, the concerns of Neighborhoods are poetic not formal, as Hood’s own summary of the album sounds a lot like Walt Whitman: “It hardly matters in which neighborhood you sprouted. The games we played, the mocks, the terminology and the feelings we experienced as youngsters are tantalizingly familiar.” And later, hitting a grand note, “How familiar, how indelible the pictures are: aromas of soft velvet days, strong friendships, fears, hates, loves... If the music seems a little bittersweet, well... isn’t that the taste of nostalgia?”
Freedom to Spend has restored Ernest Hood’s nostalgic masterpiece with the same care with which he viewed his source material, offering a remastered version of Neighborhoods transferred from the original tapes, expanded across four vinyl sides (the original version was crammed on two). The new edition reproduces Hood’s celebratory liner notes in full, alongside new liner notes by Michael Klausman. Order a copy of Neighborhoods directly from the Freedom To Spend label right here.
A portion of proceeds from this release will be donated KBOO FM, a volunteer-powered, non-commercial, listener-sponsored, community radio station for Portland, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, & the World, founded in part by Ernest Hood. Come! Mend! Listen to "Night Games" below.
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