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Steven Hood

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STEVEN HOOD is a singer-songwriter from Wellington, New Zealand.

His minimal fingerpicking style garners inspiration from Arvo Pärt, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, while his aggressive strumming honours his musical heroes Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young.

His first album “We Hope in All Things New” (under the name Stevie Starr) was lauded by the New Zealand media as ““One of the brightest new things on the New Zealand music scene ... His inspired compositions are heartfelt, uplifting and really rather remarkable””.

(New Zealand Herald)

“Music is an art and Starr paints a unique picture””. (Waikato Times)

Under his birth name, Steven Nicoll had his musical debut at 21, performing folk music at the Jazz Blues Club in Hamilton. Before the performance, the owner of the bar announced him as Stevie Starr. The newly anointed Starr soon moved overseas traveling and performing shows in Germany and London.

Returning to New Zealand in 2005 and inspired by the ideas of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, Starr teamed up with an impressive array of New Zealand musicians including members of Rhombus and the NZSO. Working with a co-producer, Justin Doyle (assistant sound editor for Peter Jackson’s "Lovely Bones", “District 9” and “Matariki”), they began work on what would become 2009’s “We Hope in All Things New”.

Upon release press described the album as “Like Sigur Rós if they hung out with Radiohead in a Horowhenua forest.” (The Sunday Star Times). Rip It Up noted Starr as an “Act to Look Out For”, “…with moody electronic tinged compositions marinated in a propensity for emotive classical style arrangements; his debut is an enjoyable listening experience to say the least”.

Quickly following the release was a music video for the title track, “We Hope in All Things New”. Directed by Canadian-born Laurie Wright, winner of the “Women in Film and Television” award in the 2008 48 Hour Film Festival. The video is a visual feast of poetry, held, flipped and transformed in a choreographed masterpiece.

Since “We Hope in All things New”, Steven has adopted a new musical character called Steven Hood and has spent his time teaching guitar, playing gigs in the United States and recording and producing his next album “Born and Bread”.

The first single from this LP called Deep Diving is to be released September 22.

Deep Diving is distributed by DRM.

We Hope in All Things New is distributed by Border Music and DRM.

Discography

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We Hope in All Things New LP

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Auckland Town
(Single)

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