Not An Animal is a label born from the party debris left uncleaned from London’s infamous Bad Passion parties, as ran by Chris Stoker and Andy Bainbridge.

As Chris and Andy’s energy was being devoted more and more to their musical endeavours (Chris - Ess O Ess with Jamie Blanco / Andy - Machete Savane with Saul Richards & more recently Latrec with Ali Colling) it became both a logical and inevitable step that they would eventually see the birth of their own record label, to showcase not only their own music but also that of the friends that they’ve made in over a decade of throwing and attending parties in various guises.

It’s this collective nature which means that Not An Animal cannot be pinned down to one single sound, genre or style. The music is instead linked by a commonality of taste and approach from all of the artists involved. While you can draw some slight comparisons with the contributors (which include the aforementioned Ess O Ess and Machete Savane, as well as Man Power, Lauer, Roman Flugel, Chida, Suzanne Kraft, The Backwoods, Kuniyuki, Frank Butters, Justin Van Der Volgen, Discodromo, Tiago & Angophora ) it would be impossible to say that anything truly unites them further than an open aesthetic which is receptive to sounds as various as Techno, Disco, Rock, Balearica and good old fashioned House, and which doesn’t try to draw any distinction between any of them.

Bookings - International/Rest of the World 
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Blues are being sucked through a tiny vortex that has appeared on the tip of the Red Pyramid. The grand tuning chambers located inside light up, glowing with vivid, electric frequencies, igniting the ionosphere. 


FLOORPAN "THE MASTER'S PLAN" (CLASSIC MUSIC):
https://cmc.lnk.to/cmcd141d

Before I got into this music I wanted to be an originator ; I wanted to be original".
Founding member of the legendary group Underground Resistance as a 'Minister Of Information' with ‘Mad’ Mike Banks & Jeff Mills, his seminal works on Jeff Mill's Axis and his very own M-Plant imprint paved the way for a wave of stripped-down dancefloor minimalism that directed much of techno's path throughout the late Nineties.
Robert Hood makes minimal Detroit techno with an emphasis on soul and experimentation over flash and popularity. 

"Growing up in Detroit, I grew up with Motown in the house - a lot of Motown and Philadelphia soul, artists like Marvin Gaye of course and Curtis Mayfield. I remember Isaac Hayes, the soundtrack from ‘Shaft’ had come out. My father was a jazz musician; he played piano, trumpet and drums. My mother was in an R’n’B group.
We listened to a lot of Motown - in fact, my grandfather’s first cousin is Berry Gordy.
"I was influenced by my father - I wanted to play trumpet like he did."
Robert's father tragically died when he was just 6. The photo of Robert siting down holding a trumpet is his fathers.
"I had to beg my grandmother to let me borrow the trumpet to take a picture with it"

In the early 90's he began to concentrate on his own production 'Vision EP', the 'Riot EP' and X-102 were big stepping-stones for him as they were the first releases he worked 100% on his own. The X-101 to X-102, were Waveform Transmission projects with Mills for Tresor. He slowly progressed to work more and more on his own, but collaberated on some of the first Axis releases with label owner Jeff Mills as H&M (Hood & Mills) with ‘Tranquilizer EP’ and ‘Drama’.

He soon decided it was time for him to start his own label to focus on what was in his soul musically. M-Plant started in ’94. I had developed this “grey area” sound - what I mean by that is that in Detroit, even when the sun is out, there’s something in the atmosphere. I don’t know if its pollution or whatever, but the sky has that grey haze over it. It’s got to be something from the industrial factories there. I’d never really heard a sound like that before and it came from a Roland Juno - it was a chord sound that really went along with my depiction of what Detroit was at that time. A lot of buildings were abandoned and there was a lot of lifelessness in the city, especially downtown. The M-Plant, in minimalism, kind of reflected that. I remember thinking of Detroit like a museum. You know, like a work of art standing still, suspended in time. There wasn’t a whole lot of activity going on.

Releasing singles such as "Internal Empire,", “The Protein Valve” "Music Data," and "Moveable Parts", "The Pace", more recently "Range", "Alpha" and that isn't even touching his other monikers Floorplan, Monobox, The Vision, etc.
"M-Plant is what I've always wanted to hear: the basic stripped down, raw sound. Just drums, basslines and funky grooves and only what's essential. Only what is essential to make people move. I started to look at it as a science, the art of making people move their butts, speaking to their heart, mind and soul. “It's a heart-felt rhythmic techno sound. M-Plant is just M. minimal. “

Although his desire to remain underground has been replaced by an urge to reach a wider audience, mainly via his housier, disco, gospel moniker Floorplan with his daughter Lyric Hood,   Hood remains fiercely critical of artistic and economic movements destructive to inner-city communities and has combined his musical enterprises with outreach and social activist ends.

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