Floorplan

Detroit techno veteran Robert Hood has released music under a few different pseudonyms, including Monobox and the Vision, but if any of his monikers have received nearly as much acclaim as the work under his own name, it’s Floorplan. As the name implies, this material is geared toward the club even more than his eponymous material, emphasizing techno and house’s roots in soul, disco, and funk via looped samples of artists like Kool & the Gang. First active during the late ’90s and early 2000s, Hood returned to the moniker in 2010, producing acclaimed full-lengths like Paradise (2013) and Victorious (2016) as well as club anthems such as “Never Grow Old,” “Tell You No Lie,” and “Let the Church.” Floorplan became a duo in 2016 when Robert’s daughter Lyric officially joined the project. They went on to release the 2019 album Supernatural and several successive singles. Hood first began using the alias in 1996 with the release of a series of 12” singles on Drama, a sublabel of his M-Plant. The imprint was succeeded by another label called Duet, which issued two more Floorplan singles during the early 2000s. Following an eight-year gap between Floorplan releases, “Living It Up” appeared on M-Plant in 2010. The moniker became much more active, releasing one EP per year leading up to 2013 full-length Paradise. Many of the tracks on the album and EPs featured prominent samples from gospel music, reflecting Hood’s devout Christian faith. Several of these tracks became club hits, particularly “Never Grow Old,” which was built around an ecstatic sample of a young Aretha Franklin. The enduring track was remixed in 2014 to further acclaim. Floorplan’s second album, Victorious, appeared on M-Plant in 2016. The album expanded Floorplan into a family affair, with several tracks co-produced by Lyric Hood. Following several years of worldwide touring as well as the release of non-album singles including “Let the Church” and “So Glad,” the duo released the third Floorplan full-length, Supernatural, on Aus Music in 2019. A double single, “The Struggle” and “Save the Children,” appeared a year later, followed in early 2021 by “Right There” and “Holy Ghost.” Another double single, “Get My Mansion Ready”/“Out of Control,” appeared later in the year. Hood continued his ongoing reissue project with a re-release of earlier Floorplan single “Shop”/“Learn” in 2022. ~ Paul Simpson