Dakota Suite / Quentin Sirjacq - The Side Of Her Inexhaustible Heart [2LP]

Twórcą i głównym odpowiedzialnym za projekt Dakota Suite jest pochodzący z Liverpoolu Chris Hooson. Jego muzyczny projekt to przedsięwzięcie bardzo osobiste, a sama muzyka daleka jest od wesołości, pełna melancholii, smutku, z bardzo oszczędnym użyciem instrumentów.

Hooson potwierdza, że od samego początku cała jego twórczość związana jest z Johanną i że dla niej tworzy, nią się inspiruje i wkłada w swą twórczość nie tylko całe serce, ale i serce przyjaciela Quentina. Panowie spotkali się m.in. na poprzednim albumie Dakota Suite "Valissa".

“life is only in a personality and every personality is based on dark ground, but this ground must be knowledge” j.w.f shelling

all my records are about my life with johanna, my recognition that I am so very lost without her, the knowledge that she sustains and nurtures me. I have made each song for her from the start.

I set out to write songs to celebrate who she is, more than I have ever done before I wanted to recognize that she makes me whole, that even though I have often pushed her away and caused her almost unbearable emotional pain due to my inability to see a way through this life, the trial and struggles of not feeling like I belong in it, feeling the world touches me too hard...and through all this she will not let me go. johanna’s capacity for loving me in spite of myself loathing and disgust is something I know keeps me alive, literally. even though she is herself scared and tattooed by holding me to herself.

meeting quentin in november 2009 was like meeting someone cut from the same tree. when I talked to quentin about the way the world is he seemed to have examples of his own that matched mine, the way he played piano showed me he was stood up to his ankles in the same muddy water as myself. now I count him as a friend and brother.

I sent quentin sketches on guitar and piano of these pieces and over many months quentin worked to arrange the pieces as you hear them now. these pieces took hundreds of hours of fine tuning and listening to unbelievably small sections and examining them for truth. the idea was not to play if we didn’t have to. I have always been inspired by two musical icons, arvo part and bill evans, and if they have taught me anything it’s that you MUST not play anything if it isn’t required. this music is all about the truth, the truth of who she is, the truth about what sustains me. the quiet places, the moments and minutes that make up who she is.


a few notes about the songs themselves:

all the pieces are about johanna and are new apart from one. quentin really wanted to re-arrange ‘how safe we must seem’ from one of my previous records, and one piece that I wrote as a direct response to the tsunami which hit japan earlier this year ‘yes we will suffer’. I remember waking up to the news and watching the devastation on my television. david, quentin and I had only just been to play shows in japan in the december and I have loved that country since I was very young. I wrote both guitar parts immediately and had the idea to have a string quartet mimic the sense of crashing wood and then into gently drifting water. it still makes me sick to my stomach to think of all the beauty washed away from those coastal areas and the loss suffered by those who lived there.

‘becoming less and less’ was an attempt by quentin and I to convey musically our inner mental state. so you hear small passages of beauty but there is always a sense of collapse and danger at the edges. the night we recorded it in paris we lay in his basement on our backs and marveled at how much it accurately conveyed our inner thoughts and feelings and how thankful we were to be able to convey it in this way.

in the artwork I wrote these words, it tells you all you need to know about what johanna means to me. for saving my life every time she wakes up from sleep. johanna, this record is for you.


like the rain and water
leave themselves in scars
so a perfectly shaped hole exists here
from the water you gave me

though we soon will be gone
this mark will remain
as a song of who we were
a miracle of trying
the only beauty I learnt to hold

these smooth walls and soft curves
taste of you and the love we spilt
all over these vicious, sore places
and when they find our bones years from now
those scars will shine and our blood
will lie sweetly beside us

Chris Hooson, July 2011

Tracklista:

A

1. As Long As Forever Is (part I)
2. Where The Tears Go
3. The Side Of Her Inexhaustible Heart (part I)
4. The Side Of Her Inexhaustible Heart (part II)
5. The Side Of Her Inexhaustible Heart (part III)

B:

6. The Side Of Her Inexhaustible Heart (part IV)
7. You Will Take All That I Love
8. Becoming Less And Less

C:

9. Yes We Will Suffer (part I)
10. To Make You Whole Again
11. The Side Of Her Inexhaustible Heart (part V)
12 How Safe We Must Seem

D:

13. Yes We Will Suffer (part I)
14. Yes We Will Suffer (part II)
15. Yes We Will Suffer (part III)
16. Yes We Will Suffer (part IV)
17. As Long As Forever Is (part II)

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