Montreal psych merchants Suuns have given us a first look at their new video for ‘Sunspot’, taken off last year’s Images Du Futur. Rather than just hooking it around the track, a collision of sonar pulses, shuffling drums and Ben Shemie’s louchely-delivered vocals, slowly masked by scything mellotron that gives way to quivering drone, the band have produced a 32 minute-long film, complete with an extensive coda of a man washing and drying his hands. Why? As Shemie tells us: "Dirtying ones hands, blood on the hands, and cleansing ones hands of sin are the themes that drive the imagery in this video. I saw Richard Serra’s ‘Hand Catching Lead’ video at the Metropolitan museum in NY a few years ago. Despite all the monumental works, this small raw video stuck with me the most. Something about the simplicity about looking at the artist’s own hands, the realness was very intense. It is Serra’s work that provides the visual inspiration behind this video […] The compulsion of washing ones hands – absolution of sin – is very powerful. This compulsive behavior, regardless of the context, can relate to all of us. This one-take sequence that closes the video is not only physically demanding, but also very challenging to the viewer. Repetition, the common thread of the droney nature of Suuns’ music, plays tricks on our sense of time and drives the fanatical and compulsive themes of the video to the edge of our tolerance."
They’re bound for these shores next month, playing the Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia on September 26 and the Village Underground in London on September 29, where they’ll be supported by tQPC magickians Grumbling Fur (who are also playing the Psych Fest, in fact), followed by a European tour. Watch the video above and have a gander at the tour dates at their website.
