» Edit Band Information
» Edit Albums
» Add a Review
» Add an Album
» Add News | Dakota Suite
Dakota Suite is not so much a band, more the brainchild of Chris Hooson, a social worker from England. He manages to hold down a full-time
job while also producing some affecting music.
Their early singles were compiled on an album entitled Alone with Everybody. It’s been said before that his music is very informed by
American Music Club and Red House Painters, and that is undeniably true of his ‘singer-songwriter’ material. This compilation is quite
varied, with some singer-songwriter type material, slightly countrified rock, and some jazzy / classical instrumentals. All the so ...read more
Dakota Suite is not so much a band, more the brainchild of Chris Hooson, a social worker from England. He manages to hold down a full-time
job while also producing some affecting music.
Their early singles were compiled on an album entitled Alone with Everybody. It’s been said before that his music is very informed by
American Music Club and Red House Painters, and that is undeniably true of his ‘singer-songwriter’ material. This compilation is quite
varied, with some singer-songwriter type material, slightly countrified rock, and some jazzy / classical instrumentals. All the songs are
uniformly slow, some feature deep strums of an acoustic guitar, whilst others are piano-based.
Their first full album proper is entitled Songs for a Barbed Wire Fence. The vocal songs are punctuated with instrumentals, and the album
was followed up with Dakota Suite’s first instrumental album, Navigator’s Yard, a series of chamber pieces strongly featuring piano. In other
words, classical music.
In 2000, they released Signal Hill, a major step forward. The album is back to mostly vocal songs, with some excellent mood-piece style
instrumentals. Close Enough to Tears is a fragile, plaintive ballad, begun on acoustic guitar around Chris gently singing ‘never let me go’.
Other highlights include the wonderful pair of songs: Riverside, recorded beside a train station and consisting only of acoustic guitar and
Chris repeating the phrase ‘is it true, are you breaking up inside’, he is then joined by some trumpets. It then leads into Raining Somewhere,
an instrumental played on electric guitars, somewhat reminescent of Red House Painters’ Katy Song, it creates a lovely autumnal Sunday
afternoon mood. « hide |
Similar Bands: Idaho, Early Day Miners, Carissa's Wierd, Codeine, Bedhead Contributors: bakkermaarten007,
|
