



Bringing gospel-infused house and techno to the sunlit slipways of Belfast, Floorplan’s AVA Festival set was akin to divine intervention. Highlighting techno and house's roots in soul, disco, and funk, the duo often mesh samples from the likes of Kool & the Gang and Aretha Franklin into hard-hitting club tracks.




Inspired by their devout Christian faith, the pair also feature prominent samples from gospel music in their material. Their 2011 hit, “We Magnify His Name,” revealed the power of combining these genres.




Hailing from Detroit, Floorplan is the father-daughter duo of Robert and Lyric Hood. Starting life as one of Robert’s solo projects in the 1990s, the minimal techno pioneer began collaborating with his daughter in 2016. In 2019 they released the album, Supernatural, and since, a multitude of singles.




Emerging in Belfast and later spreading across London, mainland UK, and Ireland, AVA is an Audio-Visual Arts Festival, Conference, Exhibition, Event Series, Industry Network, and Broadcast. Its goal is to celebrate, amplify and develop the strong current of electronic audio-visual art from the ground up.




Its flagship event, AVA Festival Belfast, started in 2015 and has grown annually. It’s now swelled to include a program of international showcases, including Mumbai, Amsterdam, London, Manchester, and Dublin.




Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming Floorplan shows at Defected at Eden in Ibiza, SWF 2022 in Amsterdam, and Maiden Voyage Festival in London.







Follow Floorplan on Instagram | Soundcloud | Spotify






 Floorplan Bring Divine Energy to AVA Festival

Often regarded as a founding father of minimal techno, Robert Hood is a DJ and producer born and bred in Detroit, Michigan. The techno legend wasn’t always known as Robert Hood, he was initially performing under the name of Robert Noise and before he was a techno icon, he was a hip hop star. “Robert Noise was what I went by… and that came from the art of noise and sort of from the Bomb Squad as well, the production team for Public Enemy (hip hop group founded by Chuck D and Flavor Flav)” (

In his interview with the Red Bull Music Academy, Hood discusses his first encounters with electronic music – he discusses the radio show “The Electric Crazy People” hosted by Derek May. When asked what the show sounded like Hood describes it as “progressive, acid, it sounded crazy, it was just so forward-thinking… it just sounded other-worldy.” After listening to this music for the first time, which at the time didn’t even have a genre name, Hood became obsessed with wanting to learn how to make it and so he essentially taught himself.

Hood was a part of the techno collective Underground Resistance which was founded in collaboration with Jeff Mills and ‘Mad’ Mike Banks. The group was part of a larger movement speaking out on the political, social and economic state of the U.S. post Reagan-era. Underground Resistance served as a means to promote awareness and facilitate a shift in political authority. The group’s mission was targeted mainly at lower-income African Americans with the goal of inspiring young black men to get themselves out of the ongoing cycle of poverty.

After his time with Underground Resistance, Hood decided to leave the group in 1992 to pursue and develop his own music career further. Him and fellow ex-UR member Jeff Mills went on to release music together as X-103 and H&M. Hood went on to establish his very own label M-Plant which was home to mainly minimal techno and saw the release of his first album Minimal Nation. The album went on to become one of the biggest inspirations for future minimal techno producers.

In the last decade, Hood released two albums under his alias Floorplan who produces disco and gospel leaning house music. Hood signed to the label Rekids in late 2020 for the release of his EP “Nothing Stops Detroit” as well as the album “Mirror Man.”

Robert Hood

Articles

Luca Rizzello