Montreal’s Suuns opened their first show in nearly two years at l’Impérial Bell in Quebec City, a setting which guitarist Joe Yarmush describes as “an old-timey nightclub, where a crooner would play.” Yarmush highlighted the experience as something the avant-garde trio isn’t used to, but went on to liken it to riding a bike: “It’s weird at first, but it’s also very familiar on a lot of levels,” he says. “And it’s more familiar than I would have thought.”

The band’s ongoing tour supports their newest offering The Witness, which was released on September 3rd, 2021. The LP’s 38-minute runtime opens and closes with the sounds of swarming cicadas, and contains elements of dark techno, contemplative multi-interpretive lyricism and colourful synthesizers all-throughout. The result is something that is sometimes alienating, but always fascinating.

During our phone call, Yarmush clarified the meaning of their album’s title, explaining that their music focuses much more on the act of witnessing in and of itself, rather than witnessing any specific thing or event.

“Now, in our civilization and society, we witness stuff that even 50 years ago we wouldn’t have seen,” Yarmush says. “When anything happens in the world, we see it immediately. Everything’s filmed, everything is being shown… How do we choose to react to things in these circumstances? Do we lose our capability to react to things that would have been appalling to us a mere few decades ago?” Yarmush and fellow Suuns members are echoing a sentiment that is all too prevalent in the 21st century: That we are becoming desensitized to the world and losing interest in major global events as soon as the next shocking headline pops-up on our newsfeed.

Exploring themes of desensitization is not new for Suuns, who have been channeling existential philosophy through free-form rock compositions since their formation in 2007. Still, Yarmush believes that “there’s something pointedly different about The Witness,” saying that all three band members could sense this difference from the moment it was being recorded to the time of its September release.

Yarmush and company are not the only ones picking up on this shift. Pitchfork describes The Witness as the band’s “most cohesive album yet,” and Cult MTL praises the album’s “fresh, offbeat sound and poetic insight.” This might be attributed to the band feeding into a desire to explore; which becomes more restless with each new year.

When asked to what extent the genre of science fiction informs their work, Yarmush explains: “While it might not necessarily be dystopian, the concept of the future is definitely a recurring theme in a lot of our music.” In a purely musical sense, Yarmush describes his band as constantly trying to propel themselves towards the future, doing something new and unimaginable each time they enter the studio for a recording session. “We never do throwbacks or purposely try to recreate a genre in a new way, even though we might put older, more traditional elements into our music from time to time.”

“In many ways [Suuns] has stayed the same, but we’ve also evolved drastically,” says Yarmush, reflecting on how the band has developed over time. “We were four members for twelve years, with very distinct musical voices. We really felt the change after Max Henry, our former bassist, left… and the band has certainly been heading in a new direction.” Yarmush fondly recalls forming the band with vocalist Ben Shemie in his mid-20s, saying: “It’s crazy to believe that I’m now in my 40s… I feel like Suuns is only starting out now in a lot of ways, even though that’s not the case, and we are very different from when we first started out.” He elaborates by saying that when he listens to their 2016 album Hold/Still, he feels as though he is observing a previous version of the band from a distance. “There are distinct contrasts between the band that made that album, and the band that just released The Witness,” he says.

For Yarmush, the process of creating, recording and subsequently performing music can be best described as a spiritual experience. When asked about whether he feels more validation during the creation or the performance of his music, he replies: “The two feed off of each other,” and are thus inseparable. “Both can speak volumes regarding an individual or a group’s musical legacy,” he adds. “Records will live on longer than performances, but there’s something really cool about playing a show. Because as soon as it ends, it just disappears.”

Suuns has existed for more than a decade now, blending experimentation with indie-rock, and method with madness. There is a thread which weaves through the experimental post-rock chaos of their works, and though The Witness marks their fifth studio album, the band shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. “People are starting to get us more,” says Yarmush. “And we’re starting to get us more. On our latest album, we’ve begun to understand something about our band, which was always elusive before. I think people are reacting positively to that.”

Luckily for Suuns listeners in Quebec and Europe, the band will be spending the next two months touring across the globe. They will be ending the French-Canadian portion of their tour later this week in Gatineau, and will proceed to spend October and November visiting Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and beyond. For more information on tour dates, visit their website.

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Spencer Nafekh is a tireless reader, writer, editor, and advocate for the written word. With an undergraduate degree in Concordia's English and Creative Writing program imminent, he plans to pursue a Master's specialization in journalism so that he can fully realize his career path. When Spencer is not working away, he is probably listening to experimental music while lost in the world of a science fiction novel.

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