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One of the several projects of elusive Midwesterner Justin Wood, Mouth Dakota is the soft-spoken and simple, but ethereal answer to the likes of Rogue Wave, Band of Horses, and The Head & The Heart. Drawing from life stories and sensorial experience, Wood layers harmonies, guitar cullings, and straightforward pulsations (often over a four track) to create an intimate soundscape.
“We’re Here to Save You From Decay” is especially engrossing. Wood moves delicately over soft harmonies and lacy guitar weavings beneath a gentle, oscillating background beat—go ahead and try not to dance to it around your kitchen, we won’t judge.
Though his online presence is sparse, his rich, full-bodied sound speaks for itself. Last year’s You, Are The Good Sense is thoughtful, embracing, and emotive—a warm brilliance for a slow Sunday morning. - The Owl Mag
Discography
Vladimir The Platypus (2006)
The Returning Levellers (2009)
You, Are the Good Sense (2012)
Coyotes EP (2013)
Garage Daze Soundtrack (2013)
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Bio
Mouth Dakota is an American indie folk band from Chicago founded in 2005 by singer-songwriter Justin Wood. Initially the project was named The Dakota Tapes after John Lennon‘s demos but later changed to Mouth Dakota to avoid any legal issues. From 2005-2012 Mouth Dakota was the solo effort of Wood that focused on capturing a lo-fi/bedroom-recording sound. Wood released four albums under Mouth Dakota & provided the soundtrack for Garage Daze before officially forming a band in 2013 with longtime friends Steph Sulcer, Ryan Dexter, Mike Sipich & Steve Sipich (& sometimes special guests). This band also writes under the name Careless Light & the Constant Explosion delving more into powerful-ambient blues.
2005-Early 2013
Mouth Dakota’s debut album Vladimir the Platypus (2006) was a collection of various home recordings, mostly analog based & recorded on a 4-track. Very few original copies are in circulation but the digital files are available on http://www.mouthdakota.bandcamp.com for free-where you can read a short story about each song if you click on the individual song titles.
In 2009 Wood released The Returning Levellers inspired by the Levellers-a political movement during the English Civil War; which was a much larger & eclectic collection of home recordings spanning three years & packed full of life stories from childhood & beyond.
In August of 2012, the third Mouth Dakota album You, Are the Good Sense was released. Although still clinging firmly to lo-fi roots, this album has a much more mature & focused sound than the previous two releases; tapping further into brief intimate moments of lush noise, experimental background drones, and finger-style guitar work.
The most recent recordings, Coyotes EP (2013) was written for the Linear Music Assignment Project or LMAP-a syllabus of song assignments that mapped out everything from BPM‘s to chord structures. These songs show Wood's range as a multi-instrumentalist-doing everything from programming drums to playing clarinet in order to create lush soundscapes within songs.
For more info on LMAP go here: http://www.linearmusicassignmentproject.com
During these years Wood did countless shows across the Midwest & interviewed/performed live on Transistor Chicago’s radio station & shared the stage with Judson Claiborne, Rachele Eve, Slothpop & many others. He frequently included a variety of other musicians for live shows including Shane Ardell, David Gapinski, Pete Borcz, Matthew Redden, Kent Vdk, Andrew McKee, Ryan Dexter, Steph Sulcer, Mike Sipich, Steve Sipich & his brother Jacob Wood.
2013
As a special guest Mouth Dakota was interviewed (as a variation of the current band) on WJOB radio of Hammond, IN & performed live in the studio. As the current band-Mouth Dakota performed at Summit Outside on Powder Mountain alongside Thievery Corporation, LP, Big Boi, Justin Townes Earle, Big Gigantic, Arty & many others. They are currently working on their first full band album.
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