Ones To Watch 2011 - Suuns

The most remarkable thing about the Suuns live set-up is its curious lack of novel, noteworthy new features. There’s no laptop in the corner running some elaborate bit of software, no clever technical widget making everything sound fabulously warped, just a regular guitar-band rig. So where on earth is that extraordinary noise coming from? Is there another band round the back playing everything for them?

Nope, it’s “pretty conventional,” confirms Suuns’ spokesperson, drummer (and, admittedly, occasional drum-machine manipulator) Liam O’Neill. “Which is actually the cool part,” he goes on, “because I think we’re able to draw pretty unconventional sounds from it.”

Indeed, they rock in unconventional ways, with keyboardist Max Henry embarking on lengthy riffs then guitarists Ben Shemie and Joe Yarmush barrelling in at their leisure, with no apparent restrictions regarding regular song structure and definitely no truck with the old Eric Clapton school of earnest axe-wankery. “Ben and Joe are some of my favourite guitar players, period,” says O’Neill. “Joe keeps throwing out these wild-card sounds, and Ben rips everything to shreds.”

Part-Canadian, part-American, they formed in Montreal in 2007 when Shemie and Yarmush - then “just two guys rapping about how great they were” - asked O’Neill to add beef. He recruited Henry and after much jamming “Suuns is just what came out,” with everything from Kraftwerk and Clinic to classic rock rearing up on debut album ‘Zeroes QC.’ So how do they all remain on the same page?

“Everybody in Suuns is a middle child,” says O’Neill, “so we have excellent skills in diplomacy and problem solving.”

Words by Si Hawkins

Where: Montreal, Canada
What: Magnificently minimal, meandering post-rock
Unique Fact: Suuns (pronounced ‘soons’) is Thai for ‘zero.’ They were called Zeroes before copywright wrangles.
Get 3 songs: ‘Arena’, ‘Sweet Nothing’, ‘Up Past The Nursery’