Montreal based four-piece Suuns have been hovering daintily around the periphery of the indie community for the past year or so. They seem to be one of those bands who people in the know are very proud to know about. Signed to the fantastic Secretly Canadian label, they make strange musical bedfellows with their lush, indie-pop label mates such as Anthony & The Johnsons, Jens Lekman, jj, Frida Hyvonen and others. Suuns craft the sort of rock music that makes your brain crackle, ribs shake and heart beat worryingly fast. I hesitate to call them “math-rock” because then we end up in a vast mire of pretentious, sub-Mars Volta pissing around. The musical intricacy on all of their tracks is stunning however. These guys clearly have a precise vision of how they want to sound, and no two tracks really sound the same. There are a few common features however.

They really remind of LCD Soundsystem in that they have an almost perfect mastery of suspense and restraint. They can gradually layer a song with more and more elements, sounds and instruments, teasing you by never breaking the surface of the water; but the thrill of seeing some ominous shadow brush against the bottom of your little boat is more than enough. They’ve perfected holding back that crescendo or hook that you can just FEEL, ready to stretch across the music, burst through the repeated rhythms and beats and send the whole thing to another level. Sometimes they hand it to you and the beat drops, other times it remains more unsaid and mysterious. That’s the case for this track “Up Past The Nursery”, made available via the label website. It’s fantastically textured and reminds me a lot of later Radiohead, but it’s very much the band’s own delectable sound. Sit back and listen to this one, and get lost in the rising mixture of sounds and textures. You’ll be rewarded.

Their debut album Zeroes QC is available now and I can’t recommend it enough. The future looks as if it holds weird and wonderful things in store for Suuns. Expect great things.

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Suuns // Up Past The Nursery [mp3] from Zeroes QC

Sorry to keep using the same welcome-mat picture, but you’ll just have to deal with it. We’ve added another contributor, this one a bit unexpected. Please welcome Rhys.

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Hi! My name’s Rhys. I’m 18 and I’m born and bred in England, just south of London. I spend an inordinate amount of time searching for new music (either music that’s just been released or older music I was unaware of), often at the expense of my own sleep and productivity… Since I discovered Tympanogram several months ago it has become one of my favourite sources. I write a blog myself, found at http://folkpunkgazesblog.blogspot.com/, and  I emailed Andy to ask if I could do a series of posts akin to the Tympanogram ’1000 Minutes’ posts. He was more than happy, and I mentioned that I wished to high heaven that I lived in the States after reading that Tympanogram was doing a shout out for new writers. However, he and Dave have been kind enough to grant me the privilege of writing for such a wonderful site and I hope I can bring something new and exciting to them and to you.

Just to share a bit about my musical history with you – I come from a pretty musically mixed family. Mother tried raising me on ABBA and The Osmonds, Dad tried obscure reggae and punk, older brother tried hip-hop, grandparents tried Big Band and Easy Listening. I’ve gained something from all of them in a lot of ways, but in my early teens I knew I wanted to strike out and find some music that really mattered (spurred on as well by the increasingly decrepit state of the UK Charts). The first band I really connected with was Green Day, and my tastes have only broadened from there. A portion of my tastes are still largely grounded in guitar bands, but I’m committed to being diverse; variety being the spice of life and all that. Some of my favourite artists right now are Laura Marling, The Coral, Arrested Development, LCD Soundsystem, Frank Sinatra, Akron/Family, Belle & Sebastian, Titus Andronicus, and Jens Lekman… I’d love to go on, I really would. There are very few people I know who I have a lot of musical tastes in common with, so I’m hoping that I can find kindred spirits within the Tympanogram family!

With the internet being… well, the internet, it’s pretty easy to get music from all corners of the world, wherever you are. However, I hope that I can provide a bit more of an insight into what’s going on in the UK that the majority of Tympanogram’s US followers won’t hear about as much or as soon. I don’t claim to be Anglo-omnipotent, but I’ll be doing my best! And I hope I can contribute to the general running and coverage of this awesome blog as well.