SUSS is excited to announce the release of our sixth album, Counting Sunsets, which is probably our favorite record so far —10 tracks, titled Sunsets I to X, that capture a specific moment with more immediacy than anything else we have done. Recorded over a relatively short period, the album is SUSS' most atmospheric, ambient and cohesive effort to date, finding us more accepting of the silent moments in our lives at a time when we feel we all need to find a place of peace.

The first single, titled Sunset II, captures that vibe, and we’re excited to share it with you. “The new single from SUSS reverberates around the headspace, warm and woolen, but also soaked in a melancholy that tugs at the seams of the soul.” - Raven Sings the Blues. You can read a review from the music blog warm visions here, as well as this piece from KLOF Magazine.

Listen to “Sunset II”

Sunset II

Pre-save Counting Sunsets (out on May 15th!)

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We’re also going on tour:

3.21 Kingston, NY - Tubby’s
3.23 New York, NY - Club 101
3.27 Big Ears Festival
4.30 Yucca Valley, CA - Mojave Gold
5.01 Los Angeles, CA - On Joy
5.02 Ojai, CA - Ojai Woman’s Club
5.03 Mill Valley, CA - Sweetwater Music Hall
5.07 Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern
5.08 Portland, OR - Polaris Hall
5.09 Boise, ID - Neurolux
7.16 & 17 Colours of Ostrava Festival

View Tour Dates On Our Website

SUSS’ Across the Horizon showcase returns to Big Ears this year on Friday, March 27th. We’re excited to be joined by Chuck Johnson (DJ), Hayden Pedigo, Ken Pomeroy, Pan American, Walt McClements, Gwenifer Raymond, Luke Schneider, Dave Harrington, Visuals by aweStruct, and more! Additional information coming soon. Stay up to date here.

You can listen to a compilation of interviews from over the years between Bob and some of these amazing artists from his podcast below.

Flow State

Across the Horizon @ Big Ears 2026 Special Edition

Bob Holmes (of SUSS) hosts this special podcast that features the artists at this year's Across the Horizon Showcase at Big Ears 2026. Pulled from interviews Bob has had over the last few years, the show…

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4 months ago · Flow State

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As you probably know, Bob has a monthly radio show on NTS called the Across the Horizon Radio Hour where he features the artists and music that he has on his podcast series, now in its fifth year. Every once in a while, Bob will have guest hosts or curators on the radio show, and for the latest episode he invited Cynthia Bernard, aka marine eyes, to curate the hour-long playlist. Cynthia is a huge supporter and promoter of artists through her monthly SoundCloud podcast “Women of Ambient,” so it wasn’t a big surprise that her theme for the show would be “Women of Ambient Americana.” And the playlist is proof that this genre of music is probably much bigger than you might have thought. Yes, the playlist includes artists like Yasmin Williams, Marisa Anderson, Gwenifer Raymond and Mary Lattimore, but it also includes artists who may be new to you like Austin Ray, Sarah Louise, Carla Patullo, and so many more!

And because Cynthia has been so influential in discovering and promoting talent in this area, she was a natural choice for being a Curator in our latest Across the Horizon Vol. 2 music series, in which she not only submitted a new track from marine eyes, but also from artists Lauren Helene Green and Jessica Roch whose tracks will be released to subscribers on 3/11/26 and then to the public a week later.

Check out Cynthia’s Substack, cloud collecting, HERE.

Find Cynthia’s playlist for the latest NTS show here:

Spotify

Amazon Music

Apple Music

YouTube Music

Tidal

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For over 2 years, Bob Holmes from SUSS has been featuring new ambient country, experimental, and instrumental music in a weekly series that he calls Saturday Submissions. The series started as a natural outgrowth of the Across the Horizon podcast that he hosts each month. Because of the podcast’s popularity, he was receiving more new music submissions than could ever be included on the show, so he decided to create a weekly program to feature these unique voices.

Based on this program, the new Saturday Submissions playlist spotlights up and coming artists who want to share their music in a community of like-minded fans and musicians. SUSS is honored that so many musicians from around the world have sent in their music, and we’re happy to provide them with a platform where fans, peers, playlist curators and journalists can go to find their music.

You can find the Saturday Submissions playlists here:

Spotify

Amazon Music

YouTube Music

Apple Music

Tidal

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As a follow up to our last post on the importance of human generated playlists, and in celebration of the coming Winter Solstice and Holiday Season, SUSS has compiled a 3+ hour playlist of wintery, seasonal and (mostly) instrumental songs to help you get through the Holidays. If you’re like us, no matter how much you love the classics by the likes of Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole and Rosemary Clooney, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to wind down the year with music that would help you wind down as well. This collection of holiday & solstice music features ambient, experimental, country, chorale, traditional and (of course) the unexpected, with artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bjork, Miles Davis, Andrew Bird, Alan Sparhawk, SUSS and many, many more. We hope you enjoy the mix and have a great holiday season and a happy New Year!

Bob, Pat & Jonathan

Ambient Country Christmas Playlist:
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Amazon Music

Tidal

YouTube Music

Apple Music

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Playlisting is an important part of everything SUSS does. In the early days, before there was SUSS, we were using the playlists of Spotify and Pandora to discover new music that related to our diverse interests, ranging from Ry Cooder to Brian Eno to John Cage. What we heard in these playlists ultimately informed a lot of our initial artistic direction. This was 10-15 years ago, and if you can remember back that far, playlists were a pretty useful tool. They helped us all discover new artists and make the connections between lots of different music.

Even in the early days of SUSS, when we started making our own playlists, we found that they were a great way to not only put SUSS’ music into context, but also begin defining the type of music that we were calling “ambient country.” It was very interesting to see others copying our playlists and adding their own spin on it. And it was our first inkling that what we were doing was more about building a community around a love of this type of music rather than defining a musical genre.

At the same time, we were also aware that the major streaming platforms (or DSPs) were starting to create playlists around this music using algorithms rather than human taste and curation. Playlists were suggesting that we listen to music that we already owned or listened to and passing it off as “discovery.” The end result was less engagement, fewer surprises, more homogeneity; more music from the bigger, established acts, and less from the up-and-coming artists that we were more interested in.

Our reaction to this was to move beyond playlists and create a podcast (originally called Ambient Country, hosted by Bob) that added more context to the music we were listening to — and that we knew others were listening to as well. And once Bob started having co-hosts bring their own playlists onto the show, the diversity of the playlist music grew exponentially.

This all ultimately evolved into what is now known as the Across the Horizon music series — the first label project (as far as we know) that puts the curation and selection of music into the hands of the artists themselves. In other words, “What would you do if you could invite eight artists onto your label every year and then let them choose two other artists to join them? Where would it go and what would it sound like?”

The music series was built to be entirely artist-centered and pure 100% human-curated content –– responding in defiance to a climate of algorithmic playlisting and artificial intelligence DJs. The Across the Horizon music series is a celebratory acknowledgment of the human relationships at the center of music, the chance encounters and all that beauty that emerges from collaboration.

Which brings us back to the concept of playlisting. In a recent interview, Mina Kim of WQED spoke with Liz Pelly, author of “Mood Machine” (a must-read that has become the definitive primer on the topic of streaming music, and playlisting specifically). Liz warned that the dominance of algorithmic playlists on streaming services could mean that individual artists matter less than the playlist itself. She also warned that algorithmic recommendations reinforce existing habits rather than fostering true discovery. “Streaming recommendations are extremely metrics-driven,” she notes in the interview. “The goal isn’t to introduce you to new music — it’s to keep you streaming.”

Like Ms. Pelly, SUSS doesn’t believe there is a single solution to the playlisting problem, but we do encourage listeners to take action by buying music directly from artists, supporting independent labels and radio like NTS (where Bob hosts a monthly show called, The Across the Horizon Radio Hour), and seek out trusted critics and curators instead of relying on algorithms.

As Ms. Kim wrote in the same article, “Ultimately, reclaiming the value of music will require multiple approaches — but it starts with recognizing that streaming, as it stands, is built to serve platforms and major labels, not artists or listeners.”

To that end, SUSS is very excited to finally launch its first cross-platform collection of artist-curated playlists based on all the music played in the first 55 episodes of the Across the Horizon podcast. These playlists are curated by SUSS as well as the co-hosts of these podcasts — hosts including David Moore, Hayden Pedigo, William Tyler, Marisa Anderson and many, many more. You can find them HERE.

Until next time, thanks for listening, finding new music and letting us know what you think!

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If you follow SUSS at all — and since you’re reading this newsletter, we assume you do — you’ll know that SUSS has been a champion of music discovery through artist-curated playlists from the very beginning. Eight years ago, we started by sharing playlists of our favorite genre-defining music on Spotify. If you were interested in a type of Americana-based music that we called “ambient country,” our playlists were about the only place where you could find it. Our playlists were so popular that we started seeing other curators copying them and adding their own favorite tracks to them, which was fine with us — as a matter of fact, we encouraged it. After a couple of years, both Spotify and Amazon got into the act by starting their own official playlists supporting this growing genre — called, respectively, The Frontier and Cosmic Strings. Then other media outlets, like Bandcamp, Aquarium Drunkard, NTS and Echoes (to name a few), started creating playlists of their own under different monikers (Cosmic Country, Ambient Americana, Cosmic Americana, Western Ambient, etc.), and a general recognition of this type of experimental instrumental Americana music started to take hold.

But SUSS felt that one of the things that made our playlists popular and different was the fact that they were artist-curated playlists. With that in mind, Bob decided to take it one step further by launching a podcast series — originally titled “Ambient Country” (recently renamed “Across the Horizon”) — that not only promoted music in this genre but gave him a chance to talk with the artists as well. With the series now in its fifth season, Bob has turned the programming of the podcast over to dozens of other artists who have brought in their own playlists of music. As Bob discovered early in the first season of the podcast, nothing tells you more about an artist than to hear them talk about the music they love.

That same approach informed the creation of the Across the Horizon music series in collaboration with Northern Spy Records. When asked to program and curate a new label imprint that featured musicians who were exploring new approaches to instrumental music, Bob decided to turn the reins over to his favorite artists in this genre and let them choose the artists whose music they would like to promote. This approach created a roster of amazing artists that would have been impossible to bring together otherwise — artists like William Tyler, Pan-American, Marisa Anderson, David Moore, claire rousay, Julianna Barwick and many more.

This all led to not only an amazing community of artists, but also an exclusive catalog of experimental music that can’t be found anywhere else. And this special relationship has allowed SUSS to curate unique collaborative Across the Horizon events in Los Angeles, Nashville, New York and, most notably, at the Big Ears Festival in 2025 that included Across the Horizon artists like William Tyler, Yuka Honda, Cowboy Sadness and Marisa Anderson, as well as others like Alan Sparhawk, Mary Lattimore, Nels Cline and Clarice Jensen.

The latest evolution of SUSS’ mission of artists curating artists has been the launch of its Across the Horizon Radio Hour on NTS radio, which features the music and artists that can be found on the podcast, as well as Saturday Submissions, a weekly playlist of new artists that Bob publishes on Instagram, which we discussed in last month’s SUSSstack post. All of this led to the launch of our Across the Horizon 24/7 streaming channel on YouTube. As the name implies, the channel features the entire catalog of Across the Horizon artists as well as other like-minded artists on the Northern Spy label, including SUSS, Luke Schneider and the Necks. Streamed live, it allows the community of listeners to interact in real time and enjoy an endless stream of their favorite music without subscriptions or advertising interruptions. To be honest, SUSS really can’t take the credit for coming up with this idea. ATH 24/7 was the brainchild of our Northern Spy label president, Adam Downey, who has held on to this dream for over 5 years as we worked out all the kinks. Here’s what Adam has to say about it:

I have to admit that Across the Horizon 24/7 was inspired by the “lofi beats to study to” anime girl. I was struck by how that stream had become a global meeting place with thousands of people chatting in several languages. I wanted to bring that same communal spirit to the world of SUSS and “ambient country,” creating a fun avenue to discover new music. The looping animation of an astronaut reading a comic book was lovingly created by my wife. Feels fitting. This project is all about art made with patience and intention.

Here’s the link:

Check it out and let us know what you think. All of us will be dropping by occasionally to add to the chatter, so maybe we’ll meet you there. This is just one more step in our mission to promote artists curating artists, and we want to hear what you think.

Until next time,
Bob, Pat & Jonathan

UPCOMING SUSS SHOWS

January 11th, 2026 - City Winery New York

March 2026 - Big Ears Festival - Knoxville, TN

With so many friends in town for AmericanaFest, we threw a little celebration at Vinyl Tap Records for the vinyl edition of the double-album compilation Across the Horizon, Vol. 1. The evening was hosted by Bob Holmes (SUSS) and featured unforgettable sets from Tift Merritt, Courtney Marie Andrews and newcomer Lily Fitts, alongside stellar performances from Nashville guitarists Michael Hix, Kyle Hamlett and Kevin Coleman.

It all culminated in a once-in-a-lifetime ambient session when Jack Silverman joined Michael, Kyle and Kevin. Watch the full jam here:

We also announced the Vol. 2 Curators: Mary Lattimore, Clarice Jensen, Chuck Johnson, more eaze, East Forest, Balmorhea, Carlos Niño and Alan Sparhawk (Low). Many of these artists will take part in Across the Horizon programming at Big Ears 2026; more on that soon!

New: ‘Across the Horizon’ Singles Program
Artists who have appeared in the series can now release future singles through our subscription service, building on a growing base of listeners and added visibility. Among the first: a new collaboration between SUSS and ambient guitarist Six Missing (TJ Dumser), previewed recently on SoHo Radio’s Dream Stream.

What’s next?
Stay tuned for October 2025 single releases, more Big Ears details and the launch of our Across the Horizon 24/7 streaming YouTube channel.

Until next time,
Bob, Pat & Jonathan

Folks, we know it’s been a while since we last posted, but SUSS has been busy planning a whole new series of Across the Horizon events and releases for 2026. There’s been a lot of buzz happening right now about the release of the double vinyl album, featuring artists like William Tyler, Marisa Anderson, Luke Schneider, David Moore, Cowboy Sadness, claire rousay, Julianna Barwick and many more. And we’re just getting ready to announce the artists who will be in Vol. 2 as well. But guess what? That’s not the music community that we’ll be talking about in this SUSSstack update.

Nope, we’re doing things a little different this time and we’re going to use this post to raise awareness of something that Bob does on his Ambient Country podcast called Saturday Submissions. I know we discussed Saturday Submissions in a featured SUSSstack post from last December, but it has only gotten more popular since that time and has taken on a life of its own. To recap, Saturday Submissions started when the Ambient Country podcast became so popular with fans of SUSS and ambient Americana music in general that artists, fans and labels started sending Bob music to consider including on his show. That would be all well and good, except for the fact that Bob doesn’t choose the music that goes on the podcast—he lets his guest hosts do that and they do a very good job of it. But over the last 4 years of doing the podcast Bob realized that there was a lot more experimental instrumental music out there than he was able to cover in his show, so he started posting his favorite submissions every Saturday morning through the Ambient Country Instagram account @ambientcountry.

He gets submissions from artists, both established and unknown, as well as suggestions from other artists and fans. And sometimes, labels will send him press kits—because they know what he likes - and every week he ends up with 10 –12 tracks that he thinks everyone should pay a little more attention to. And the response has been amazing. It’s kind of like a level playing field. He doesn’t give more attention to the bigger artists than he does to those that are just starting out. It’s all good, and most often great. And what he loves about it is that some of the best artists in the world are following this weekly playlist, as well as some of the most important journalists and streaming and radio curators. Nothing excites him more than to see some of these Saturday Submissions show up on radio shows, playlists and reviews after they’ve been on his playlist (you can find all past playlists as featured posts on the profile page @ambientcountry)

And now because of the success of the podcast and the music series, radio stations like NTS and Soho radio have asked Bob to create programming for them where he picks the artists and music, allowing him to expose this new music to a much wider audience. In particular, Bob has created a 2-hour block of Saturday Submissions for Soho Radio, as a guest host on the monthly radio show “Dream Stream”. In fact, the show is the brainchild of pedal-steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte, an artist that Bob featured early on in Saturday Submissions. You can find an archived recording of the recent radio show here.

Joe Harvey-Whyte

You may have never heard of some of the artists, though there will be a couple names that you might recognize. What you will hear are some of the unsung heroes in this genre that we call ambient country. But let’s be honest, these artists are not always ambient, and they’re rarely country. But all of them use sounds to create a world of wide-open spaces that invite exploration, which is really what the genre is all about. And for this reason, SUSS felt that this show would be a great opportunity to give a sneak peak to a couple of new collaborations that they just completed with the Austin, TX ambient recording artist Six Missing aka TJ Dumser. These two tracks, which start and end the show, are so new that they haven’t even been titled yet, which seemed to be appropriate to the general attitude of Saturday Submissions.

Six Missing aka TJ Dumser

For those who have followed us so far on this journey (and this post) we thought you’d like to see the playlist. Give it a listen and let us know what you think. And as Bob says in every podcast - playlists, streaming and radio are great ways to discover new music but they don’t pay the bills. If you like something you hear, support these artists by buying something – a download, a tape, vinyl, a tee shirt, a bumper sticker, a ticket to a show. Anything!! It all makes a difference.

Until next time, thanks for the support.

And here’s the playlist from Soho Radio’s “Dream Stream” broadcast:

Lift - Joe Harvey-White, Paul Cousins
UNTITLED # 1 - Six Missing, SUSS
Maze of Roses - Seawind of Battery
Glass Hand - Barry Archie Johnson
Amazing Time - Pure Waves
Shelling Gatherers - Jonas Reinhardt, Maxim Starcke
West Camaro - John Swanke
Cadence - Wonderful Aspiration of the Source
Sky (debesis) - Steve Gunn
Eyes as Mountains - aileron
Sunday at the Dime Museum - The Royal Arctic Institute
Lamenting the Colours of Melting Ice - Pan-American, Kramer
What got us to Our Feet - Almost an Island
I’ll Send You a Sign - R&D
Actual Place - Aaron Fisher & Rob Stephenson
Circles as a Path as a Valley - Tacoma Park
River Transmission - TwoPine
Up Yonder - Swim Ignorant Fire
The Groundhog - Joseph Allred
Five and Twenty Days for Lunch - Andrew Tuttle, Michael Chapman
Drawn From River Water - Seaworthy, Matt Rosner
Saying Yes to Everything - Prairiewolf
Lima-07 Blairstown - Nate Hofer
Galaxias - Willebrant
Mustang Island - Little Mazarn
Untitled #2 - SUSS, Six Missing

Hi, this is Bob from SUSS. Let me just start this off by saying that the topic of this post took me by surprise as much as it’s probably taken you. The idea of SUSS being popular with practitioners of psychedelic wellness was not on my radar until a couple of close friends told me about their recent experiences of using the music of SUSS as an important element in their guided psilocybin therapies. I thought that this was just anecdotal until I got a call from Daniel Barton, a Nashville-based psychiatrist in the field of psychedelic medicine, who wanted me to know that SUSS (and the other band I’m in, numun) were popular (and effective) during psychedelic therapies. He also asked if I would be interested in being a guest speaker at a symposium on “Music & Psychedelic Therapies” being led by the Center of Natural Intelligence, an association of therapists, researchers, scientists, and psychiatrists dedicated to the use of psychedelic medicines for mental health. As the get-together was going to be held in the Catskills Mountains at Menla (a project of Tibet House US, spearheaded by Robert and Nena Thurman), it seemed like an offer I couldn’t refuse.

The 3-day event would include therapeutic practitioners, scientists and researchers from all across the US and would feature five music professionals, including an Ayahuasca singer, an EDM artist, a specialist in Celtic music and one of the leading psychedelic musicians, East Forest, whose recent album and full-length documentary “Music for Mushrooms” had gotten a lot of people talking about what is being called the “Psychedelic Renaissance.” To be honest, I felt a little out of my league amongst the rest of these guest speakers, so in the beginning I was a little trepidatious. I had very little experience with psychedelics (read: none), and I really had no idea of what to expect. But, I’m a fast learner, so I decided to take the “trip” and get a better idea of what everyone was talking about.

After my time on the mountain, I can say that I experienced a lot, but I can also still say that I still haven’t “been experienced” (as Jimi Hendrix would say). However, I did spend three days sitting through multiple sessions, ceremonies, or containers (depending on your terminology) where everyone around me was discussing music and its effects while experiencing pharmaceutical enhancements. And I have to say it was quite enlightening - especially as it applied to SUSS.

When considering psychedelic therapies, there are 3 important elements; think of them as three legs on a stool – the guide, the medicine, and the music. Though therapies can still be effective when you have only one or two of these legs, it is best when all three are present. And there is a movement afoot, led by East Forest, that is promoting the use of live music during psychedelic ceremonies rather than the use of curated playlists (which are currently the most common) for a more impactful experience. Most of the attendees at the symposium had only heard SUSS’s recorded music as used in playlists for their patients, but a group of them, led by Daniel Barton, came to see us perform in Nashville at Third Man’s Blue Room, and like with East Forest, it was SUSS’s live performances which seemed to be of the most moving for them.

For a deeper dive into this world, I suggest checking out the latest episode of the Ambient Country podcast, co-hosted by East Forest, where I discuss his music, his ceremonial practice, his movie, and his work with scientific thought leaders of the “Psychedelic Renaissance.” And for a more informed discussion, I highly suggest seeing East’s feature-length documentary “Music for Mushrooms.” East has generously offered all listeners of the Ambient Country podcast, as well as subscribers to SUSSstack, free access to his movie HERE until June 14.

In the end, my main takeaway from the three days in the Catskills was that I had only scratched the surface. I’m guessing that there are definitely new ways where SUSS might connect with audiences that we’d never considered before – something that went beyond concerts, touring, and festivals, some that focus more on gatherings and communities looking for health, wellness, and release. In these troubled times, I can’t think of anything better than music to help us all find the way. We’ll keep you posted as we explore this new landscape further.

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“One late-night set affected me more than any other I saw this year, all because of a simple gesture, what might have seemed to some almost like a playful trick. It happened during a surprise set by Nashville treasure and experimental guitarist William Tyler and harpist Mary Lattimore, featured during a showcase by the ambient country trio SUSS.”
- Ann Powers, NPR

“ I thought switching off during an improv set would be a fun exercise in fragility and also, a big trust fall into a warm and friendly crowd of strangers (and some friends).”
- William Tyler, NPR

“You relish these opportunities, but it was Big Ears so I knew it would be OK.”
- Clarice Jensen on asking Marisa Anderson to do a last-minute improvisation

“I thought that was the vibe!”
- Alan Sparhawk on asking SUSS to back him up on an unannounced set of his music

“It’s like a big reunion of my friends and family from all over the world”
- Yuka Honda on what makes Big Ears so special

When SUSS got the call back in 2024 to see if we would be interested in not only performing at Big Ears, but also curating a part of the event, we could not believe our (big) ears — or our fortunes. Based on the success of Bob’s Ambient Country podcast and his Across the Horizon music series, Big Ears asked SUSS to curate, in their words, a “festival within a festival” that features the artists from the podcast and music series. This included a showcase with Immersion, where SUSS would be debuting their collaboration, Nanocluster Vol. 3, followed by a 2-night Across the Horizon music review and a series of music-based panels.

The task felt daunting in the beginning, and only got more harrowing as the dates at the festival in Knoxville, TN grew closer. And to make things a little more difficult, SUSS was on tour with Immersion, so we were juggling tour and festival logistics at the same time. When people ask us how we able to pull it off, we can only give thanks to the energy, creativity, commitment, and flexibility of all the artists involved in the undertaking.

The artists from the two nights of the Across the Horizon showcases included:

• SUSS

• Clarice Jensen

• Marisa Anderson

• Eucademix (Yuka Honda) & Nels Cline

• Alan Sparhawk

• Nina Keith

• Cowboy Sadness

• Mary Lattimore

• William Tyler

• Geoff Dyer

• Immersion w/ SUSS

  

And on top of that, SUSS hosted 3 days of music panels that included:

• John Diliberto (of nationally syndicated radio show Echoes)

• Michael Rother (Neu! And Harmonia)

• Mary Lattimore

• Stephen Brower (Head of Music US, Amazon Music)

• Adam Downey (Pres. of Norther Spy Records)

• Blake Leyh (composer, music supervisor)

• Randall Poster (music supervisor)
  

  

Though Bob had spent a lot of time over the last few years speaking with many of these artists on his podcast or in conjunction with his music series, this was the first time he had a chance to meet any of them face to face. And SUSS’s overall takeaway was that we could not be prouder of the community of artists who gathered together for this “shambolic revue” (as our friend John Diliberto coined it.)

Some of the high points included:

• An improvisational set between Marisa Anderson & Clarice Jensen

• A set of Alan Sparhawk music, backed by SUSS, Nels Cline & Yuka Honda (Eucademix)

• Another improvisational set between Mary Lattimore & William Tyler, where they switched instruments mid set!

• A surprise appearance and reading of The Lightning Field by writer Geoff Dyer, where SUSS performed an improved piece behind him.

• A spellbinding, surprise appearance and performance from electronic composer Nina Keith

• An amazing panel discussion with legend Michael Rother about his days with Neu! , Harmonia and Kraftwerk, with Mary Lattimore and John Diliberto

• The amazing immersive videos provided by Brett Phares and Awestruct

• And finally, the climactic performance of SUSS’s Wichita, where the band was joined on stage with Cowboy Sadness.

To be honest, there were a lot more high points, some of which included seeing performances not included in the Across the Horizon programming. including performances by William Basinski, Darkside (w/ Dave Harrington), Michael Rother, and Laraaji.

On our last day, we had breakfast with Bryan Crow, director of operations & programming for Big Ears, and he asked if we would do it again and if so, how could we make it even better? There’s no easy answer to that one. But we said that because the next release of the Across the Horizon series is going to be filled with a bigger and wider array of artists, the next Across the Horizon nights could only follow suit. We can’t think of a more satisfying challenge!

For more behind-the-scenes conversations with all of the artists mentioned above, check out the latest episode 43 of the Ambient Country podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Or you sign up for free at Flowstate.fm and never miss a beat!

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SUSS is officially in Austin with a busy SXSW schedule to kick off our upcoming tour! Come on down to the Cosmic Americana Ice Cream Social TODAY 3/13 at the Hole in the Wall to enjoy an ice cream and get away from the chaos of SXSW.

The Cosmic Americana Ice Cream Social begins Thursday, March 13, from noon until 6pm. The best in modern cosmic psych folk chill ambient country whatever-you-want-to-call-it will be in tow, stop by to rest on the cozy patio, have a beverage, and catch up with pals.

SUSS headline this day party, curated by the Ambient Country Podcast & Across The Horizon’s own Bob Holmes. Six Missing create immersive ambient music perfect for your interior life or ethereal movie soundscape. Little Mazarn are a folky walk in the woods. Jerry David DeCicca formerly fronted Ohio-based indie folk act The Black Swans and offers his own outsider folk perfect for your inside. Frail Talk springs up from the dirt with folk roots and soft pop colors. Step away from the madness and hang with us just a few clicks north of Dirty Sixth.

No RSVP necessary, free + open to the public!

COSMIC AMERICANA SET TIMES:

12pm Little Mazarn
1:15pm Frail Talk
2:15pm Six Missing
3:30pm Jerry David DeCicca
4:45pm SUSS

SUSS x SOUTHWEST!

Before + after the ice cream shindig, SUSS have a busy SXSW not to be missed, playing 4 sets during our few days in ATX. Full schedule + details below!

THURS 3/13 - 12p - Cosmic Americana Ice Cream Social @ Hole In The Wall

FRI 3/14 - 12p - Everyone is Everyone Free Bash @ The White Horse

FRI 3/14 - 7p - The 13th Floor *

*with Immersion and Nanocluster

SUSS’ tour with Immersion continues this week in Houston, where they’ll be performing their new collaboration ‘Nanocluster Vol. 3.’ You don’t want to miss this! Full tour dates + tickets below.

TOUR DATES
March 14 - Austin, TX - TICKETS
March 15 - Houston, TX - TICKETS
March 16 - Dallas, TX - TICKETS
March 18 - Memphis, TN - TICKETS
March 19 - Nashville, TN - TICKETS
March 21 - Louisville, KY - TICKETS
March 22 - Chicago, IL - TICKETS
March 23 - Detroit, MI - TICKETS
March 25 - Pittsburgh, PA - TICKETS
March 26 - Columbus, OH - TICKETS
March 27-30 - Big Ears Festival - TICKETS
March 31 - Washington, DC - TICKETS
April 1 - Philadelphia, PA - TICKETS
April 3 - Boston, MA - TICKETS
April 4 - New York, NY - TICKETS

TICKETS

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As many of you probably already know, SUSS is getting ready to head out on the road for about 5 weeks, starting in Austin at SXSW, then heading through the South and Mid Atlantic, before heading north to Chicago, Detroit, Boston and ending up in our hometown of NYC. Check out the full tour itinerary here.

In the middle of all that, SUSS has a 4-night residency at the prestigious Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, where we are curating what Big Ears calls “a festival within a festival,” and what we call “Across the Horizon.” These 4 days of events will include a SUSS show with Immersion, where we are playing our new collaboration “Nanocluster, Vol. 3” live. There will also be two nights of Across the Horizon showcases including performances by Chuck Johnson, Clarice Jensen, Cowboy Sadness, Yuka Honda (eucademix), Marisa Anderson, Mary Lattimore, William Tyler, and Immersion with SUSS. There will be some exciting surprise guest artists that we will announce as the shows get closer!

Another aspect of these four days in Knoxville are a series of panels that we are putting together, including “The Third Wave of Ambient,” hosted by John Diliberto (Echoes) and Bob Holmes, and including Michael Rother (Neu! And Harmonia) as well as Mary Lattimore. Another panel, which is hosted by Stephen Brower (Amazon Music, Cosmic Strings) and SUSS’ own Bob Holmes, is called “What is Ambient Country?” and features pedal steel composer Chuck Johnson. Lastly, Pat Irwin comes together with music supervisor Randall Poster and film composer Blake Leyh will be discussing “Music for Film & TV.”

In honor of the last panel, Bob is republishing episode 11 of Ambient Country from Oct. 2022, which was co-hosted by Pat Irwin upon the release of his soundtrack to the hit Showtime series “Dexter: New Blood”. In this episode, Bob and Pat not only discuss the creative process behind scoring this show, but we also get to hear more about Pat’s early days of working together with John Cage and Philip Glass. Pat also brings along some tracks of his recent favorites, including Rachika Nayar, Chuck Johnson, Bill Frisell, and more.

You can find the episode here. Sign up now for free and never miss a beat on all things Ambient Country! And stay tuned here as well, as there will be more exciting news about what’s happening with SUSS as they go on the road soon.

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TOUR:

March 14 - Austin, TX - TICKETS

March 15 - Houston, TX - TICKETS

March 16 - Dallas, TX - TICKETS

March 18 - Memphis, TN - TICKETS

March 19 - Nashville, TN - TICKETS

March 21 - Louisville, KY - TICKETS

March 22 - Chicago, IL - TICKETS

March 23 - Detroit, MI - TICKETS

March 25 - Pittsburgh, PA - TICKETS

March 26 - Columbus, OH - TICKETS

March 27-30 - Big Ears Festival - TICKETS

March 31 - Washington, DC - TICKETS

April 1 - Philadelphia, PA - TICKETS

April 3 - Boston, MA - TICKETS

April 4 - New York, NY - TICKETS

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Northern Spy Records and Bob Holmes of SUSS have reached the halfway point of their ambitious new music series, Across The Horizon. 12 tracks are now available on all streaming platforms as the series continues its mission of uniting instrumental pioneers through artist curation and collaboration. The final release will be a limited-edition 2XLP and risograph zine, available exclusively to Bandcamp subscribers.

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Based on Holmes' acclaimed Ambient Country podcast, this series invites notable instrumentalists to curate and collaborate on new music. Each featured artist selects two peers to contribute, forming a dynamic, ever-expanding network of sound exploration.

In an interview with Aquarium Drunkard about the series, Bob said:

“When Northern Spy came to me, they initially said, “Bob, are you interested in a job as kind of an A&R person for this type of music?” And I was like, whoa, I don’t think so. While I’m happy to call these people my friends and peers, I don’t want to choose some of them over others and all that. But I came back at them with this concept. I said, “What if I invited a series of artists to do one-offs and each one of those artists brings in their own artists to contribute?” Northern Spy loved the idea and then I put it out in front of the artists. And it’s really taken off. As I found out on the podcast, no one loves to talk about their own music, but they love to talk about everybody else.”

Curators in this first volume include:

Mastering for the series is handled by Chuck Johnson (Balmorhea, Claire Rousay), with visual design by Lisa Glenn Armstrong.

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Early concept sketch for the album design by Lisa Armstrong

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Bob has also curated two full nights of solo and collaborative performances by Across The Horizon artists at Big Ears 2025 in Knoxville, Tennessee this March! This live showcase will highlight the project’s musical throughlines and its dedication to community-building in instrumental music. Artists include Chuck Johnson, Clarice Jensen, Cowboy Sadness, eucademix (Yuka Honda), Marisa Anderson, Mary Lattimore, Rachika Nayar & Nina Keith, SUSS, and William Tyler.

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STREAM "THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND"

"People has got to have more faith in one another, believe in each other. There’s a spirit of some kind we’ve all got. That’s got to draw us all together.”

- Woody Guthrie

Great songs endure. The sentiments expressed by Woody Guthrie in his 1940 classic are no different today; the Dust Bowl and the social upheaval it caused may have faded from memory, but the truths of fairness and equality are timeless, like the songs they inhabit. Music exists to connect, and its lessons are deeply ingrained. You don't need a lyric to feel it, you already know that truth will persist as long as there is someone to hear it.

It’s hard to know exactly where the idea for a song begins or how it progresses, but in the case of SUSS’s interpretation of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” the path was pretty clear. Bob recalls “I was playing my guitar and watching the news with the sound turned down. Before I knew it, I started strumming the patriotic standard. I slipped into a minor key which seemed to throw the whole song in a new direction, even though it didn’t change the melody that much. I pulled out my phone, and recorded the guitar, harmonica, and whistling on the first take — right there in the living room.”

The melody was haunting, the recording was raw, and it seemed to capture everything he was feeling at the time. He sent the track to Pat, who always has a way of pulling things a little left of center, which is just what it needed.

As Pat says, “We live in a big country. This land was made for all of us; it was made for you and me. SUSS’ music has always been about finding space and exploring the power of the unexpected. Woody Guthrie's words resonate throughout the SUSS version of ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ so we don't have to hear them literally.”

Once Pat added keyboards to the track, Jonathan recorded his pedal steel, adding a strange mixture of hope and aching pain, taking the track to a whole new place. Jonathan goes on to say “Music, more than almost anything else, can evoke the emotions of a time and place. As we find ourselves again in a time of challenge and uncertainty, we reach for solace in the same places as those who came before. Whether it’s a hymn, a battle cry, or a simple folk song, music is ready to bring us together and remind us that we have been here before, we are still here, and always will be as long as we remember.”

Mastered by Chuck Johnson, SUSS’s adaptation of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” is out now on the Across the Horizon imprint of Northern Spy Records, just days before the Presidential Inauguration.

SUSS is proud to release this music into a world that needs a timeless message of hope, resilience and community more than ever.

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If you have been following our posts lately, you probably know that Bob Holmes and SUSS are curating a group of artists for the 2025 Big Ears Festival under the banner of “Across the Horizon” – described by Big Ears as a “festival within a festival.” The artists are all well known in the ambient, instrumental, and cosmic Americana world, and in most cases have been co-hosts at one time or another on Bob’s podcast series “Ambient Country.” But there’s another programming feature of the “Ambient Country” podcast which focuses on finding and promoting new, up and coming artists in this growing community. It’s called “Saturday Submissions.”

“Saturday Submissions” started about 6 months ago when Bob realized that he was getting more recommendations and submissions for new music than the podcast could ever handle on its own. New music was being sent to him by fans, by labels, and by artists themselves. In some cases, the artists were showcasing their own music, and because they liked the music on the show and they liked the music of SUSS, they hoped that SUSS might like what they were doing as well and give it a shout-out. In other cases, it was artists and labels sending Bob recommendations of music that they’d recently heard that they felt needed more exposure than they were getting. And in other cases, it was just friends and musical peers who were releasing music that Bob liked and wanted to promote.

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Bob publishes about 10 artists and tracks every Saturday morning on the Ambient Country Instagram account, and after more than 6 months, this has added up to hundreds of different artists and well over 10 hours of music, which he has now compiled in an ever- growing playlist on Spotify (and soon on Amazon Music and BNDCMPR). These artists, in general, would qualify to be included in the genre of Ambient Country or Cosmic Americana, but the music styles run pretty wide ­— Primitive American, Experimental, Electronic, Country Komische or Krautrock, Ambient and sometimes just straight Country with vocals. And the cool part is that they all feel like they belong to this scene and Bob happens to agree with them!

The “Saturday Submissions” playlist is drastically different than what is going on in the Ambient Country podcast or the Across the Horizon music series, and in many ways it’s something that is a lot more satisfying and gratifying. As you may already know, the structure of the podcast is to choose a well-known musical artist to co-host an episode and have them choose some tracks from other artists that they’d like to talk about. And the structure of the Across the Horizon music series works pretty much the same way — Bob chooses some of his favorite artists to provide a track and then lets them pick two other artists to provide tracks as well. The end result in both cases is that you get to know more about the artists by hearing what other music excites them. And as we mentioned before, it’s these better-known artists that SUSS has invited to be part of the upcoming Across the Horizon series at Big Ears 2025.

But “Saturday Submissions” is very different. In most cases, you’ve probably never heard of these artists. They’re tucked away in parts of the U.S. that have no access to clubs, record stores, radio outlets or press. Or they are from outside the U.S., listening to a lot of the new stuff being created stateside and finding a kinship that they never knew existed. In most cases, these artists would have had no idea that there were other people making music like them if it weren’t for listening to the podcast and the playlists we put out there. Bob gets a lot of submissions every week and the overall quality of the music is amazing. The range of styles is all over the map, but the podcast has done a pretty good job of giving people an idea of what he probably will like, so he ends up liking pretty much everything he gets and publishes as much of it as time will allow. And one of the best parts about “Saturday Submissions” is that other music publications and resources are taking notice, reviewing these artists and adding tracks to their playlists. In the latest “Ambient Country” podcast, Stephen Brower, Head of Music (US) of Amazon Music, cites “Saturday Submissions” as one of his primary resources for finding new music. And several of these artists were included in the recent “Best of 2024” list that Bob and Stephen compiled. Now, there is a community of new artists who are following each other, sharing audiences virtually, and sometimes in the real world, and communicating in a forum that is fun to watch. Bob may have set it up at the beginning, but now he loves seeing it take on a life of its own.

So that’s what “Saturday Submissions” is. As a programming title, it’s pretty bland, but it does the trick. It tells people what to do — “Submit a Track” — and it provides a schedule of when those tracks will be aired: “Saturday.” And then Bob just sits back and waits to see what comes in next.

Link to Saturday Submissions Playlist, on Spotify:

our work.

Photo by Erik Delmar

Last month, we posted about how important the visual aspect of the concert experience has been to SUSS. We discussed our early days of visuals with founding member Gary Leib, and our work with the video designer Ghost of Provence, who provided the stunning visuals for our series of shows supporting our SUSS self-titled double LP. We ended with a sneak peek of what to expect at our last show of the season with our recent collaborator Brett Phares and his art catalog aweStruct.

In preparation for SUSS’s Across the Horizon Series at Big Ears 2025, we wanted to use this most recent show at The Local in Saugerties, NY, as a sort of “proof of concept” for our new approach to visuals. In many ways, the venue is very similar to where we will perform in Knoxville at Big Ears. The church setting, the cathedral ceilings, and the overall vibe are almost a perfect match. As a matter of fact, the venue in Upstate New York was in no small way inspired by what The Local executive directors Isabel Soffer and Danny Melnick experienced on their many trips to Big Ears in the past.

First off, let us start by saying that SUSS has always felt that the best visuals are not meant to be merely a backdrop for the performance. Unlike many shows where the visuals serve mainly as a lustrous wallpaper behind the main action of the band and its performance, SUSS decided early on to take a different approach. It was our concept with Brett and aweStruct: to create an immersive experience that could be appreciated on its own merits — like walking through a gallery and being moved from one experience to the next. The videos were not meant to be synced with individual tracks, nor were they originally created with SUSS’s music in mind. However, there was a strange thing that happened when we started working together with Brett —something that he likes to call “auto-synchrony.”

Brett originally approached SUSS because of this concept of “auto-synchrony” and his practice of using projection art for “community well-being” — something that he suspected had an affinity to SUSS’s music as well. He felt there was something about the combination of the music and his visuals that would create a third space where audiences could find new and personal connections that would vary for every participant but would provide a certain sense of “engaged mindfulness” for everyone. It was this unique approach to immersive experience design that SUSS felt would be perfect for Big Ears, as well as our other upcoming shows in the works for 2025.

With all of that in mind, here are a few examples of visual experience that SUSS and aweStruct created for our most recent show in Upstate New York. As we get closer to our shows at Big Ears, we’ll be sure to update you.

Photo by Rudy Lu

“Shimmer”

“Winter Was Hard”

Photo by Erik Delmar

Until next time,

SUSS

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How SUSS recovered from that loss is well documented, and probably the best example is the self-titled double album released in 2023. When supporting that release last year, during a month-long stand of shows at NYC’s Culture Lab, SUSS knew we had to do something special. We decided to dedicate each of the four evenings to a single side of the album, and that each evening would provide a unique visual experience to go along with that performance.

It was a tall order, but SUSS ended up working with visual designer Ghost of Provence to create a live multi-projector event that enveloped the audience in an immersive environment that played large part in drawing them back for multiple performances. The three-screen video experience, 20 feet high and 60 feet wide, included live footage of the band as they were playing, superimposed on warped images of psychedelic Americana along with hometown shots of the band’s NYC neighborhood.

This year, for the newly released “Birds & Beasts” tour, SUSS was approached by the visual designer, experimental video curator and artist Brett Phares, who runs the digital video gallery Awestruct and is co-founder of the Digital Graffiti Festival.  His concept was to envelop the band in a 360-degree immersive video experience that tapped into some of the best experimental video artists in the world — an experience where SUSS would be the focal point and jumping-off place for the imagination, but where the videos would extend that sense of wonder and magic. In his words,

“Magic invites us to step into wonder, to shed our familiar perceptions, of a city, a neighborhood, ourselves. To see it anew, like a voyager.”

It felt like a perfect complement to where our new music was taking us.

Awestruct visuals for ‘Flight’

Awestruct X Brett Phares will be joining SUSS on Friday, Nov. 1, as we perform our last concert of the year, at The Local in Saugerties, NY. Housed in a former Dutch chapel built in the 1800s and lovingly restored, The Local was opened as a space for arts, culture, and community in 2023 and is a hub for outstanding cultural programs from around the world and around the corner. There will be limited seating but tickets are still available.

Until next time,

SUSS

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This is the second year running that Bob has been invited to AF to represent SUSS, talk about Ambient Country, and do DJ sets at area venues promoting the artists and their music in this genre.

Bob moderated this year's panel, called "Ambient Country - Not as Niche as You Might Think" and included panelists Stelth Ulvang (The Lumineers, Heavy Gus), Marc Byrd (Hammock), Emily Smith (host of the Alt-Country Show), and Mike Mannix (founder & head of Centripetal Force Records). Much like the Ambient Country podcast that Bob hosts, the conversation headed in unexpected directions. 

Admittedly, the panelists represented a wide range of experiences and opinions. First, you have Stelth, who is a performing member of one of the world's biggest arena rock bands, while also pursuing an independent solo career. And then you have Marc Byrd from Hammock, who has reached the kind of popularity that most ambient and post-rock bands can only dream of, while still running an independent label for smaller ambient artists. And Emily Smith, the host of the long-running popular radio show and podcast, The Alt-Country Show, is at the center of popularizing the crossover between ambient country and alt-country. And then Mike Mannix, the head of Nashville's Centripetal Force Records, representing artists like Luke Schneider, Pat Sansone, the Nashville Ambient Ensemble, Joseph Allred, and many more, has positioned ambient country as the new "outlaw country" of Nashville. It was an amazing conversation that was recorded and we hope to post in the near future. 

After the panel, Bob hit as many shows as possible in the short time he had left, including the Dave Alvin show at the Eastside Bowl, where it felt like old-home week with his old Boston music scene friends including the writer Warren Zanes, discussing the upcoming Springsteen movie "Nebraska," based on his book of the same name.

And then it was back to VinylTap, for Bob's Across the Horizon listening party, which included performances by Joseph Allred, J. Childers, and a surprise appearance by ATH artist Stelth Ulvang himself, who played some tracks off of his new record.  The evening was co-hosted by Mike from Centripetal Force Records, who in honor of the occasion gave out free samplers of ambient country music with 24 artists (too many to name here), and available here.

The night was capped off with a celebratory fine dining experience at the Waffle House, and needless to say, the 6 AM wake-up call at the hotel came a little too early.

Be sure to listen to the new episode of Ambient Country featuring Chuck Johnson, and stay tuned to hear more about our show coming up in November. This one is going to be a little different than the rest.

-SUSS

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Yep, this happened! We’ve been hearing about it for a while and we couldn’t quite believe it until we saw it in print. It was a very hard secret to keep, but now that it has been announced, Bob Holmes, host of the Ambient Country podcast, and the bandmates in SUSS are very excited about being given the opportunity to shine a light on this genre of instrumental music and the artists who make it!

Across the Horizon is a bold exploration of where Americana’s roots intersect with the boundless expanse of ambient music. Curated by Bob Holmes and SUSS, this unique program invites you into a realm where sound becomes landscape, and music transcends genre, inviting listeners to wander through vast, uncharted spaces of sonic possibility.

Following the success of Bob Holmes’ podcast series, “Ambient Country,” SUSS have invited some of their favorite artists who redefine the boundaries of sound, blend the organic with the ethereal, and craft soundscapes that feel both familiar and otherworldly. Featuring performances that evoke open skies, endless roads, and a sense of drifting between worlds, ambient music’s expansive drones, shimmering textures, and meditative pulses meet the resonant echoes of Americana’s pedal steels, guitars, and haunting melodies, creating a space where time seems to stretch and bend.

Across the Horizon isn’t just a series of concerts—it’s an invitation to lose yourself in the immersive, introspective, and transformative power of music. Here, sound becomes a journey, leading you beyond the familiar into the vast and the unknown. Step into the experience, let the music guide you, and explore the space where ambient textures and Americana’s heart meet in a breathtaking sonic horizon.

Big Ears Festival is March 27-30 in Knoxville, TN; passes are on sale now. More exciting info to come!

Talk soon,

SUSS

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But let's go back to the beginning. If you remember about 4 weeks ago, SUSS tried to get to Seattle, but ended up spending 3 hours on the tarmac and a few more in the airport lounge waiting for a thunderstorm to pass. Though we appreciated the time for extra beers and much contemplation, it appears that the pilots ran out of time and we were left stranded in Queens and had to head home.

But KEXP was quick to rebook us and back we went. This time we had a few weeks of gigs under our belt and were “battle-hardened" for our return to Seattle. We actually figured out a way to get all of our gear and the three of us into an over-sized taxi and now we think we can conquer the world. 

When we arrived in Seattle we were ushered into the text-book version of a "Rock & Roll Hotel" - The Crocodile. It had a lounge and ambiance that came close to matching Jack White's "Blue Room" green room in Nashville- and that's saying something. 

The Crocodile was just up the hill from the Pike Place Market, so we spent the evening at Matt’s Restaurant enjoying the best seafood stew and views that any of us have ever had. We were joined by Jonathan's old friends and bandmates from Life in a Blender, Don Rauf and Dave Moody. And having known these fine gentlemen for over 40 years, JG regaled us with classic war stories from the 80’s and beyond. 

And then it was back to The Crocodile to find out why they call it a rock & roll hotel it turns out it is also a venue and the night we were there we were "entertained" by a hardcore Japanese hip hop act that kept our bathroom fixtures shaking long into the night.

The next day, maybe a little bleary-eyed, we loaded into KEXP with the help of our friend Blake Conley aka Droneroom, and were immediately greeted by some of the friendliest and accommodating folks we've met on this tour (and we've met a lot- thanks again Nelsonville Music Fest staff!). KEXP treated us like stars, but as far as we were concerned, the real star was DJ Alex, who we have come to know through his amazing weekly ambient music program- Pacific Notions. We’ve become so used to hearing his voice on the radio/internet that when we heard it actually coming out of a human, we were stunned. 

Alex, thanks again for all the support you've given SUSS over the years, and thanks for inviting us out to Seattle and KEXP.

But the adventure wasn't over. We had to load our stuff back into the rental van, get it to the airport and on the plane, fly across the US, unload it from the plane, get it in a taxi, and then back into Pat's studio in Long Island City. 

We did it- in less than 48 hours! Hey, it’s not like Phil Collins chartering an SST to play Live AID, but it may be as close as we ever get. And now that we’ve rested for a few days, if asked, we'd probably do it all again!

Talk soon,

SUSS

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