Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Showing posts with label Chris Hooson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Hooson. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Saturday, January 2, 2021
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Dakota Suite - This Drowning Light - Album Review
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2020/03/11/dakota-suite-this-drowning-light-album-review/
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Friday, January 4, 2019
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Saturday, December 30, 2017
A Year in Music – Chris Hooson (Dakota Suite)
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2017/12/30/a-year-in-music-chris-hooson-dakota-suite-2/
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Friday, December 23, 2016
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Monday, December 21, 2015
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Album Review: Dakota Suite – Waiting For The Dawn To Crawl Through And Take Away Your Life
This was Dakota Suite’s first album in 4 years. Chris Hooson and co re-emerged in 2007 with
this mainly vocal and guitar album. The
opening two slow guitar-based tracks, Never Much To Say and A Darkness of Moon
(duet with Anna Elias) set the tone. Uw
Wanhopige Vrees is more experimental, a mainly electronic track with snatches
of female vocals here and there. The next
two tracks, piano ballad Because Our Lie Breathes Differently and the emotive I
Don’t Understand Your Medicine are darker still before the brief cello
instrumental Early Century Maple acts as a palette cleanser.
The second half the album is not that different from the
first, with the lengthy All Your Hopes Gone Cold and the trumpet-based Over A
Loveless Winter standing out.
Penultimate track Brittle With Sorrow is a dramatic string flourish
before the album ends on a somewhat downbeat note with All That I Can Hold
Near.
It's worth visiting the world of Dakota Suite. At times it can be a world of pain, but amidst the gloom lies quiet beauty.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Album Review: Dakota Suite – Alone With Everybody
Not strictly speaking a cohesive album, it’s actually a collection of EPs from 1996-1998 released by Dakota Suite. It works well as an introduction to Chris Hooson and co. On this collection we are treated to the various melancholic styles the band is capable of. Mood Indigo is almost alt-country with a melody that sounds so perfect you’ll swear you heard if before, underpinned by Richard Formby (ex-Spacemen 3) on lap steel and organ.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Episode is a piano instrumental, foretelling the band’s evolution away from singer-songwriter material towards a more classical palette. Colin Dunkley’s piano works beautifully on the gorgeous Autobiography, Chris Hooson’s whispered vocals and acoustic guitar filling out the song nicely along with some violins.
The band do more conventional (for them) electric guitar based songs also, Divided and Just Like Jesus are fine downbeat tracks. Somewhere has a fine clarinet featuring prominently throughout and a gorgeous violin coda. More austere is News From Nowhere, with dark harmonium and organ dominating amidst the ominous ringing of bells.
There are fine instrumentals on this collection, the piano and metronome (?) combination of To Have Wondered also worthy of note, before the sweeter sounding Colder, which echoes Mood Indigo with intricate guitar and some wonderfully dippy “ba ba”s from vocalist Chris Hooson. Although the band is not fully formed on these recordings, there is some really fine music lurking within.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Album Review: Dakota Suite – Morning Lake Forever
This album followed swiftly after the wonderful Signal Hill in 2000. Rather than a cohesive album, it’s a kind of mish-mash, taking Chris Hooson’s singer-songwriter material alongside classical pieces and electronic work.
Chapel Rain shares a lyrical and musical resemblance to the Red House Painters’ Evil for nearly nine minutes. Turk 1 on the other hand is a propulsive, jazzy instrumental. Perhaps the most moving piece is The Streets Were All I Saw, which has some quite beautiful violins backing Hooson’s vocals. Lesseps is an almost science-fiction style electronic piece full of bleeps, evoking Eno.
It culminates with the serene classical piece, About When We Met, a pleasing mix of piano and strings. Despite the lack of cohesion, the pieces all share a similar mood if not sound, which makes this short album quite a compelling one.
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