Incidentally, I started writing this article while a heavy rainstorm was unfolding outside my office. The combination of Chloe Dunn’s elegant and slightly melancholic orchestral matter and hard-hitting rain tones made for a rather magical listening experience, which in turn made me appreciate even more the complex and evocative creative ethos that propels the France-based songstress. This is far from your average cinematic-coded offering; in fact, there’s strong eclecticism in it, with each of the track’s components serving a functional role. Strings provide a luxurious melodic and harmonic ground, while Dunn’s hypnotic and malleable vocals dance with grace over the brooding aural carpet. An Orchid synthetisers and even a Moog help tie the sonic landscape together.
We’d love to call it a triumph, although some of our readers might object to us making absurdly grandiose statements. Yet, after listening to ‘Dark November’, that’s our conclusion. Perhaps we should be more correctly judging this as the pinnacle of Chloe’s artistry, at least so far. In particular, we appreciate the sparse and minimalist character that underpins the composition. Dunn toys with pauses and silences, never once losing control over the intensity of the piece, nor its lyrical urgency. Widening the perspective on ‘Dark November’, the keen listener is bound to find it a tad nostalgic, a feature that instantly connects with the literary inspiration behind the record.
Drawing strong influences from John Fowles novel ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’, Dunn “explores the complex character of Sarah as she vacillates between her primaeval, passionate nature and the confines of 19th-century society”. Among such Victorian theming, there’s also a shared personal factor, as the artist herself is originally from Dorset, England, also the setting for the aforementioned Fowles’ novel.
Recommended! Discover ‘Dark November’ now: