Live: Suuns, XOYO, London
- Written by Russell Watson
‘Minimalist’ is a word which you can frequently apply to Suuns’ recorded output. Live, on the other hand the adjective makes no sense whatsoever. Any attempts to call this music minimalist get blasted away by the force of the band’s arrangements, turning elongated jams of eerie repetition into increasingly powerful sound. The elements of their style which give rise to this description remain fully intact, but empowered by the muscle, noise, and sheer volume of their live set up, it still feels suitable to call their music ‘patient’, ‘assured’ or ‘careful’, but never minimalist.
The minimalist fallacy emerges from Suuns’ ability to achieve maximum impact with the minimum of ingredients. Repetition, deceptively thin textures, and hyper-simple licks are the vertebrae of their music, resulting in performances in which even the slightest additions to the arrangements rupture through the texture with disproportionate force.
Sublime single ‘2020’ encapsulates everything which Suuns are brilliant at: the achingly perfect riff, with its deliberately just-missed squeak of a slurred note, getting about as close as a series of notes possibly can to abandoning any claims to composition, while still being an ear-burrowing masterstroke. And with the repetitive one-note bass pulse throttling through the venue, the simple addition of the bread-and-butter driving 4/4 beat at around the minute mark, the thing instantly gains several extra layers of visceral power, turning into a euphoric, rhythmic showstopper. And all from some tossed off notes tumbling down the fret-board, and the first beat anyone learns on the drums.
And from the heightened intensity of the live performance, the sense of borderline restraint becomes doubly pronounced. Some songs, like ‘Arena’, descend into a state of cathartic squalor, with Suuns happily accelerating into frantic guitar combat, and sees a genuinely funky bass line snaking up through the mix. But more usually, the band adores hinting at explosions just around the corner, only to snatch away the promise at the very first taste. Album highlight ‘Bambi’ moves through its lengthy passages, with its sultry little riff constantly teasing itself into more gratifying rhythmic contexts, and the components never quite swirling into full alignment. And just as it really threatens to do it – key change and everything – the thing stops dead.
This isn’t a criticism. Nor is it an accusation of Suuns’ failure to meet the songs’ full potential, or inability to capitalise on obvious opportunities. These moments of release are best placed in the unvisited margins of these jams, with the few moments of execution dazzling all the more for their rarity. The patience and restraint which backbone the songs are also on display across the entirety of the set, teasing the listener into rapture, and turning the incredibly mature set into one of the most arresting live music experiences of the year so far.