SUSS Presents Across the Horizon

For a long time, the members of SUSS thought they were on a solo mission. All veterans of rock acts that reached assorted levels of career success, they were now interested in the place where the soundscapes of ambient music met the wide-open landscapes of the American West, where the unfurling licks of country music’s pedal steel met the soft contours of Brian Eno, where the line between the soil below and the sky above vanished into an infinite horizon. That search framed a half-dozen exquisite albums, multiple EPs, and collaborations, perhaps best captured on 2024’s Birds & Beasts, where long tones shimmered like sun on distant desert asphalt. But did anyone else care, they wondered? Did they have any peers?

In 2022, SUSS cofounder Bob Holmes launched a podcast called Ambient Country and found that so many fellow musicians shared his enthusiasm that, three years later, the show continues. It has not only spawned a new series of compilations, Across the Horizon, but also an ongoing series of free-form sit-ins and collaborations at Big Ears. At Big Ears 2025, SUSS welcomed an astounding series of guests to Across the Horizon, from guitarists William Tyler and Marisa Anderson to “jambient” trio Cowboy Sadness and cellist Clarice Jensen. Nels Cline and Yuka Honda even stopped by for a set. At Big Ears 2026, the family expands with another batch of collaborations and experiments that will only happen in Knoxville, continuing to confirm that the horizon SUSS pursues indeed seems endless.