Ernest Hood Back To The Woodlands / Where The Woods Begin

• 1. Noonday Yellows
• 2. Rain
• 3. Dusk
• 4. The Jantzen Rag (Raccoons)
• 5. Pleasant, This Garden
• 6. Bedroom of the Absent Child Lost Creek Suite:
• 7. Into The Groves
• 8. Warm Pathways
• 9. Sunny Banks
• 10. Fragrant Duff
• 11. Beaver’s Pond
• 12. Untitled

Written and recorded between 1972 and 1982 in Western Oregon, Back to the Woodlands is a previously unreleased, and nearly lost, album made by Ernest Hood during the same era as his near mythical album Neighborhoods. A visionary combination of field recordings, zithers, and synthesizers, Back to the Woodlands offers an unprecedented depth of access to this singular artistic mind.

A fascinating counterpoint to its predecessor, Back to the Woodlands brings us even closer to Hood’s belief in the transportive qualities of sound; that field recordings could serve as a vehicle for the imagination and liberation, particularly for those with similar mobile disabilities as his own. Across the album’s twelve compositions, the rippling instrumental harmonics - shifting between abstraction and playful melody - fold so seamlessly into the birdsong, bubbling brooks, and other environmental ambiences, that they often give the impression of having been recording within the landscapes toward which they whisper.