“Sunset VI” by SUSS

For the last decade or so, New York’s SUSS has been one of the nation’s pre-eminent practitioners of “ambient country.” Which, as the genre’s name suggests, finds purchase in that unlikely liminal space between ambient music and country music. Not “country” in the Nashville sense of the word, mind you, but rather, in the sense of wide open spaces filled with dust devils, tumbleweeds, and endless desert vistas.

As it turns out, “endless” is a pretty apt descriptor for “Sunset VI,” which appears on the trio’s latest album, Counting Sunsets. The album’s title suggests the sort of activity one can only truly enjoy when they’re freed from the hustle and bustle of modernity and become more in-tune with the cycles and rhythms of nature.

Appropriately, the dulcet tones of Jonathan Gregg’s pedal steel stretch from one horizon to the other. Meanwhile, softly plucked guitar notes lend some structure to the song, as does some minimal percussion. For the most part, however, SUSS is content to let “Sunset VI” drift like the shifting desert sands and draw the listener into wide open spaces in which they can truly lose themselves.

Counting Sunsets is currently available from Northern Spy Records.