SUSS

SUSS is a New York instrumental ensemble known for a singular strain of ambient Americana that highlights the sustained tones running through country music and Western film scores. Their sound fuses the plaintive resonance of pedal steel guitars and harmonicas with contemplative synthesizers and loops, reflecting equal debts to Brian Eno’s projects with Daniel Lanois and the cinematic work of Ennio Morricone and Ry Cooder. The self-released 2018 debut Ghost Box unexpectedly found a devoted online audience and became a regular presence on ambient playlists, prompting the group’s association with Northern Spy. Additional releases continued to develop the same core aesthetic, among them 2024’s Birds & Beasts.

Founding members Bob Holmes and Gary Leib had earlier played together in the country-tinged new wave band Rubber Rodeo during the 1980s. On the first SUSS album the remaining musicians were pedal steel guitarist Jonathan Gregg plus guitarists Pat Irwin, previously of the B-52s, 8 Eyed Spy, and the Raybeats, and William Garrett. Ghost Box originally appeared on the band’s own E.V.P. Recordings label in early 2018 as a seven-track set that quickly attracted online listeners and strong reviews. Northern Spy later issued an expanded version that year, increasing its visibility. The non-album 7" single “Chisholm Trail” followed in 2019 and preceded the darker second album High Line. Promise, the more expansive third album, arrived near the end of 2020. Garrett departed before those sessions, and Leib died after the 2021 EP Night Suite was completed. The remaining trio issued two further EPs in 2022, Heat Haze and Winter Was Hard. The double album SUSS closed the year, collecting those three EPs plus a fourth titled Across the Horizon. Longform Editions released the half-hour piece “Rising,” recorded with Andrew Tuttle, in 2023. Birds & Beasts, the band’s fifth Northern Spy album, appeared in 2024 and populated its stark soundscapes with the creatures, cycles, and rhythms of the surrounding world.