Dakota Suite and Quentin Sirjacq – Forever Breathes The Lonely Word – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Chris Hooson who records as Dakota Suite has returned to recorded music, collaborating with French artist Quentin Sirjacq.  Things haven’t got any sunnier in the four years since the last Dakota Suite album.  The album, which shares a title with an old Felt album, is a tribute to the late Nick Hawley, one of Chris Hooson’s oldest friends.

Largely instrumental, at 68 minutes there is a LOT of music to take in.  It feels like an opus from the opener, Edge of Mourning which bookends the set.  An Immeasurable Sorrow is as foreboding as that title indicates.  There are some particularly poignant pieces: The Only Truth I Know (for Johanna), Committing Ourselves to Uncertainty – and also These Unimaginable Things That You Bear (for Nick).

We also get occasional, very zen, palette-cleansing interludes such as A Call From Beyond, This Accident of Being Lost.  Two vocal covers break up the set.  The first is a recent Janis Ian piano ballad When He Was Here with a gorgeous backing vocal from Anna Elias.  Here Hooson’s soft singing finds him sounding close to breaking point. Then later a cover of an unreleased Blue Nile/Paul Buchanan song Meanwhile becomes a hymn of quiet desolation in Chris Hooson’s hands.

Piano piece Our Wounded Land strays into ambient territory as does the pensive, anxious In Darkness We Still Wait For You.  The stately Fending Off Collapse would fit nicely on a film soundtrack.  A glorious slab of sadness which will delight Dakota Suite’s quiet army of fans.  It’s available from Bandcamp here.

These Unimaginable Things That You Bear (for Nick)