Suuns - Hold / Still (2016)

Hold/Still, 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.

Produced by Grammy-winning producer John Congleton Dallas,Texas, Hold/Still is a natural step on from their two previous albums, 2011s Zeroes QC & 2013s 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.

The first single, “Translate”, is one of the defining songs of the album – the sound of a band working in mental lockstep, crafting guitarmusic that feels unbeholden to clear traditions or genre brackets. It is a song that the band have been reworking for years, and wasone of the last songs to be finished for the album, and yet, perhaps, defines the record perfectly.