Suiix – The Great Nothing

Coming out on April 27th, ‘The Great Nothing’ is the sweeping, conceptual new release of Suiix, aka Sydney-based singer and keyboardist Sarah Jullienne. Throughout its drifting, dreamy six minutes, it builds and builds. The floaty nature of such a long track allows time for a lot of experimentation, and this one has it in bucketloads – with entrancing percussion, an organ, melodic keyboards, a guitar solo, and an outro which sonically feels close to that of an aeroplane flying through the sky contrasting with reverberating ocean waves. If you immerse yourself inside this on-the-surface nihilistic sound, it opens your own brain up and really makes you think.

“The Great Nothing is about drifting towards your own demise,” Sarah explains. “It grew out of an endless pursuit to understand everything and explore the uncomfortable feelings I was having about the unknown and unknowable.” Lyrically, she uses simple allegorical storytelling to explore these ideas and musically; soothing harmonic textures as the underlying gravity of the concept becomes increasingly apparent throughout.

The lyrics were inspired by Egyptian mythology and a classic Aesop fable adapted by La Fontaine, as well as the idea she describes as ‘The Truman Show’ syndrome. Sarah explains the desire to explore within the lyrics “the idea that life can appear to be this smooth sailing and deceptively benign ride to the end… but until we challenge our surroundings, explore the uncomfortable feelings, and embrace the great void of uncertainty, how do we know what and whose version of reality we are really living?”

Expansive and winding, this track really takes you on a journey, both enthralling you with its beautiful sound and leaving you with an overwhelming existentialism. When an artist combines impeccable musical talent with great ideas and deep intelligence but manages to do so in a way where their instrumentation brings out those ideas in a way in which silence alone would be unable, it truly is a magical thing. ‘The Great Nothing’ achieves this, and as such, is a masterpiece.

Ryan Powell