Robert Hood ‎– Internal Empire

Mesmerizing, and still firmly stands as one of the most forward thinking and advanced (in terms of expanding horizons and pushing the techno envelope to new hights) albums of its era. The sound is not hard, but just pushing and driving. Tracks tend to seize your attention in no time, encapsulate you, and just take you along for a ride.
No climaxes, no banging factory like beats, Hood does it his way. Minimal amount of layers, skillfully arranged, percussion is rolling at a fast pace, but it never dominates. Interestingly enough, there is not a dull moment here. Where a lot of minimal albums tend to chase the same groove for over ten minutes, Hood builds his tracks fairly quickly, squeezing the essence of his music in 4 to 5 minute pieces. You won't find any tunes with two minute segments at the beginning and end in order to make them easy to mix. Hood cuts to the chase and goes striaght for the nucleus, retaining the bare feel of the music, but never stripping it of an undeniable funky charm. Some sounds and effects used throughout this album still sound amazing today, and back in the day, I knew nothing that could outtake Minus and its absolutely perfect manipulation of that sire-like sequence. The title track sounds like the most minimal science fiction techno track ever, while Home (quite probably the master stroke here) is a prime example of text book minimal techno.
Overall, I like it way more than "Minimal nation", another record of his praised for having introduced/redifined the concept of minimal techno. I find "Internal empire" more complete, the music is hypnotic, thick, while the sound despite being old is still totally impenetrable. The high points of this albums are techno tracks for the ages, and can to this present day be heard in DJ sets world wide. Along his album recorded under The Vision moniker, I consider this his finest release ever, and arguably the most prominent example of early minimal techno, if not its cradle. If that takes it a tad too far, then rest assured Robert Hood changed the way generations perceived and listened to techno music.