METRO (Birmigham UK) (October 24, 2001)

FOLK - Doug Hoekstra (Tonight, Witchwood, Old Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, 8:30 p.m., 7 pounds, Tel 344-0321

It's a classic non-voice, so limited in range that it confines itself to soft recitative.  This could be a serious liability for a professional singer, but Doug Hoekstra turns his limitations to advantages.  Studio albums - Around The Margins, the latest, is successor to the excellent Make Me Believe from 1999 - skilfully weave together tape loops , string quartets, electronica, documentary voices, and conventionally strong vocals in sumptous arrangements.

The breadth of reference suggests an unusually smart and cultured fellow. Spectral Miles-like trumpet underscores the skewed narrative of Bob Dylan's "Isis" (the only non-original on Around the Margins).  At one point, some atonal piano accompaniment echoes the theme from the 1946 David Niven movie A Matter of Life and Death.   Cinema-goers will recall that heaven is depicted in luminous monochrome.   Hoekstra's song - an unflinching account of childhood - is called "Black and White Memories".

In performance, there is nothing to distract from the calm, languid voice and the stories he tells.  First and foremost, Hoekstra is a storyteller.  His tales of ordinary people - of lives 'around the margins' are as unresolved and enigmatic as real life.  Listening to him is comparable to reading naturalistic writers like Raymond Carver or Richard Ford:  austere in prospect but life-affirming in actuality.

Hoekstra, recording star in the Netherlands, was raised in the Chicago suburbs and currently lives in Nashville.  His music is as far from the cowpoke corn of Garth Brooks as heavin is from hell.

(Mike Butler)

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