Suuns announce new album “Hold/Still”

By: Staff –

Suuns.

Montreal-based indie rock band Suuns will release their new album, Hold/Still, on April 15th via Secretly Canadian/Secret City.

The third studio album from Suuns is an enigmatic thing: an eerily beautiful, meticulously played suite of music that embraces opposites and makes a virtue of cognitive dissonance. It is a record that does not give up its secrets easily. A natural step on from their two previous albums, 2011’s Zeroes QC & 2013’s Images du Futur, and yet a marked departure, Hold/Still is a cerebral exploration of how to take live and analogue instruments and create a deeply textured “electronic” record. In May 2015, they decamped to Dallas, Texas to work with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton and for three intense weeks they recorded by day and stewed in their cramped apartment by night. “It felt like we were on a mission – looking for something to take us out of our element, or that might seep into our music”, say the band.

The first single, “Translate,” is one of the defining songs of the album – the sound of a band working in mental lockstep, crafting guitar music that feels unbeholden to clear traditions or genre brackets.  It is a song that the band have been reworking for years, and was one of the last songs to be finished for the album, and yet, perhaps, defines the record perfectly.  The synthesizers are the work of Max Henry, an obsessive who builds his own patches and confesses to using cranky or budget equipment – “[good gear] does all the work for you, and that’s not always fun”.

Accompanying the song is the first of a trilogy of videos for the album (the second and third installments will be launched ahead of the record release). Shot by Charles-André Coderre, a long-term collaborator of the band, he says, “’Translate,’ the first music video of a triptych series, is an incandescent vision. It was shot with thermal imagery. The concept was simple: film the band in their rehearsal space and transfigure the footage into something unusual and gorgeous. We experimented the different meanings of the word “translate” and explored a new film language by shooting what the human eye can’t see.” Watch the video below.

Also released today is the Dark Sky “Psych” remix of “Translate” – the first of a number of remixes that will be launched alongside tracks from the album. This one takes the original’s repetitive, krautrock-like rhythms and squeezes them into a tighter, mesmeric arrangement. Says Dark Sky, “We really liked the psyched out sounds and sonics from the original track which sounded vintage but also forward thinking. We were inspired to build on this vibe.”

Hold/Still Track-list
1. Fall
2. Instrument
3. UN-NO
4. Resistance
5. Mortise and Tenon
6. Translate
7. Brainwash
8. Careful
9. Paralyzer
10. Nobody Can Save Me Now
11. Infinity

Suuns 2016 Tour Dates 
Sat. Mar. 19 – Azores Island, PT @ Tremor Festival (Tickets)
Thu. Apr. 7 – Sainte-Therese, QC @ Bar le Cha-Cha (Tickets)
Sat. Apr. 9 – Saint-Casimir, QC @ La Taverne (Tickets)
Fri. Apr. 15 – Quebec City, QC @ L’Anti (Tickets)
Sat. Apr. 16 – Carleton-sur-Mer, QC @ La Naufraqeur (Tickets)
Wed. Apr. 20 – Montreal, QC @ La Tulipe (Tickets)
Thu. Apr. 21 – Ottawa, ON @ St. Alban’s Church (Tickets)
Fri. Apr. 22 – Toronto, ON @ Adelaide Hall (Tickets)
Thu. May 19 – Berlin, DE @ Berghain (Tickets)
Fri. May 20 – Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg (Tickets)
Sat. May 21 – Lille, FR @ Grand Mix (Tickets)
Sun. May 22 – Brussels, BE @ La Nuit De Botanqiue Festival (Tickets)
Tue. May 24 – London, UK @ ICA (Tickets)
Fri. May 27 – Neustreliz, DE @ Immergut Festival (Tickets)
Sat. May 28 – KleinReifling, AT @ Seewiesen Festival (Tickets)
Mon. May 30 – Paris, FR @ TBD
Wed. June 1 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound (Tickets)
Sun. June 5 – Mannheim, DE @ Maifield Derby Festival (Tickets)
Wed. June 8 – Rome, IT @ Monk (Tickets)
Thu. June 9 – Ravenna, IT @ Beaches Brew Festival (Tickets)