SUUNS - Felt on CD

Description

Suuns present their new album, Felt, released on Secretly Canadian. Singer/guitarist Ben Shemie says, "This record is definitely looser than our last one [2016's Hold/Still]. It's not as clinical. There's more swagger." You can hear this freedom flowing through the 11 tracks on Felt. It's both a continuation and rebirth, the Montreal quartet returning to beloved local facility Breakglass Studios (where they cut their first two albums [Zeroes QC and Images Du Futur] with Jace Lasek of The Besnard Lakes) but this time recording themselves at their own pace, over five fertile sessions spanning several months. A simultaneous stretching out and honing in, mixed to audiophile perfection by St Vincent producer John Congleton (helmer of Hold/Still), who flew up especially from Dallas to deploy his award-winning skills in situ. Watch You, Watch Me , Felt's lead single, showcases an organic/synthetic rush that builds and builds atop drummer Liam O'Neill's elevatory rhythm. O'Neill exclaims, "It was different and exciting. In the past, there was a more concerted effort on my part to drum in a controlled and genre-specific way. Self-consciously approaching things stylistically. Us doing it ourselves, that process was like a very receptive, limitless workshop to just try out ideas." Complementing O'Neill are the ecstatic, Harmonia-meets-Game Boy patterns unleashed by electronics mastermind Max Henry. Eschewing presets, Henry devised fresh sounds for each song on Felt while also becoming a default musical director, orchestrating patches and oscillations. Quietly enthusing about "freaky post-techno" and Frank Ocean's use of space, he's among your more modest studio desk jockeys: "Yeah, I sat in the control room while the others played - hitting 'record' and 'stop'. It also gave me the flexibility to move parts around and play with effects. I do have a sweet tooth for pop music." Suuns are proud of their roots in Canada's most socialist province, while sonically standing apart from Quebec's string-swept, accordion-driven, choral chamber indie scene. Quebecois natives Shemie and Joseph Yarmush founded the group just over a decade ago, the latter having moved to Montreal from a nearby village. The only member not to be formally schooled in jazz, guitarist Yarmush studied photography and utilized his visual training to help realize Shemie's novel concept for the eye-catching album artwork.

Track Listings
1 Look No Further
2 X-alt
3 Watch You, Watch Me
4 Baseline
5 After the Fall
6 Control
7 Make It Real
8 Daydream
9 Peace and Love
10 Moonbeams
11 Materials