Dakota Suite – This Drowning Light – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Although Chris Hooson has declared that Dakota Suite is no more, he has left his loyal listeners with one, final, parting gift.  This album is a collection of rare and one-off tracks over the last twenty years or so, perfect for the Dakota Suite fanatic to round out his or her collection.

The tracks from the early noughties channel a vaguely countrified slowcore sound (My Broken Face, Broken Like Fingers and Thumbs, and a cover of American Music Club’s This Year).  They move through different styles, jazz-tinged instrumentals (The Colour of Water), spindly ambient-folk (You Packed Your Things, A Darkness of Moons), pensive keyboard pieces (Narcolepsy Lake), dispatching each of them rather well.  By the time they get to the most recent decade, tracks like The Side of Her Inexhaustible Heart and The Sea Has Many Voices have a stately grace about them.  They even found time to record a couple of songs with singer Chantal Acda towards the end of the collection.

One for the rabid fans, sure.  But also a collection that hangs together well, definitely worth investigating for the curious.  It’s available from Dakota Suite’s bandcamp.

Track List –

1. My Broken Face
2. This Year
3. The Colour of Water
4, You Packed Your Things
5. Narcolepsy Lake
6. Broken Like Fingers and Thumbs
7. A Darkness of Moons – piano instrumental
8. You Packed Your Things – San Francisco version
9. A Darkness of Moons – alt. version
10. The Side of Her Inexhaustible Heart
11. Nine Variation II
12. How Scared I Am To Live
13. My Thirst for You Is Where I Hide
14. The Sea Has Many Voices