Podcast
Across the Horizon
Hosted by Bob Holmes · EN
Bob Holmes of SUSS hosts Across the Horizon (formerly Ambient Country). Each month he and a special monthly guest explore the wide open country of ambient and experimental instrumental music, featuring performances that evoke open skies, endless roads, and a sense of drifting between worlds, taking listeners across the horizon.
www.flowstate.fm
www.flowstate.fm
20episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Across the Horizon Ep. 63: Pan-American
2w ago00:59:56Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Ambient Country, host Bob Holmes of SUSS welcomes back Mark Nelson aka Pan-American to discuss his latest album, Fly the Ocean in a Silver Plane. Mark brings a playlist of music he's recently discovered including Hoavi, Sam Wilkes, Dave Easley, and Elori Saxl. They also discuss recent collaborations that Mark has released with Chelsea Bridge and MIchael Grigoni.For Flow State, we’re listening to two recent Pan-American records. We’re first playing that new LP, which came out in March. Its tender ambient pieces are made up of elegant strings, multi-layered processed guitar lines, and field recordings. We’re also revisiting his 2024 collaboration with Kramer, Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road, which we previously described as ghostly Americana, as if William Basinski or The Caretaker were handed a guitar.Fly the Ocean in a Silver Plane - Pan-American (38m, light vocals on tracks 2 and 10)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / TidalReverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road - Pan-American & Kramer (50m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / TidalHave a great Wednesday. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 62: Balmorhea
Apr 1500:59:56Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Across the Horizon, Bob Holmes of SUSS reconnects with co-hosts Rob Lowe and Michael A. Muller of Balmorhea for a discussion about their latest release in Vol. 2 of the Across the Horizon music series. Rob and Michael also curate a playlist of influences from their early years in Balmorhea, which is on the eve of its twentieth anniversary, including music from Bexar Bexar, Pullman, Rachel Grimes, Will Ackerman, and many more. The playlists from this episode are available here.For Flow State, we’re listening to two of Balmorhea’s albums released on Deutsche Grammophon. The Trap, their latest album, came out in August of last year, and is an original score for a film written and directed by Lena Headey (not the M. Night Shyamalan Trap). As they discuss on today’s episode, that record is just Rob and Michael playing keys and guitar together. We’re also playing The Wind from 2021, which features a range of accompanists including cellist Clarice Jensen.The Trap - Balmorhea (24m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / TidalThe Wind - Balmorhea (46m, spoken vocals on track 1)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / TidalHave a great Wednesday. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 61: Marine Eyes
Mar 2500:59:53Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Across the Horizon, host Bob Holmes of SUSS is joined in this episode by co-host Cynthia Bernard aka marine eyes. In addition to her prolific ambient output, Cynthia is also one of the curator artists in Vol. 2 of the Across the Horizon music series. In this episode, she discusses the music and artists that she brought to the series, as well as a playlist of ambient artists that have inspired her own music including Nancy Wilson, Amiina, Julianna Barwick, and many more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 60: Big Ears 2026
Mar 1100:59:55Tap to summarizeBob Holmes (of SUSS) speaks with artists featured 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 features the music and artists who will be performing at this event, including Pan-American, Chuck Johnson, Hayden Pedigo, Gwenifer Raymond, Ken Pomeroy, Dave Harrington, Luke Schneider, Walt McClements and SUSS. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 59: Clarice Jensen
Feb 1800:59:56Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Across the Horizon, Bob Holmes of SUSS is joined by his co-host, the cellist and composer Clarice Jensen, to discuss the music of her friends and mentors: Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stars of the Lid, and more. She also discusses her latest releases, including her submissions to the new Across the Horizon Vol. 2 series. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 58: David Moore (Pt. 2)
Feb 400:59:44Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Across the Horizon, host Bob Holmes of SUSS is joined once again by David Moore in the second part of his two-part conversation. David’s known for his work with Bing & Ruth and Cowboy Sadness, as well as his collaborations with Steve Gunn and Stephanie Coleman. In part two, he brings along a beautiful set of solo piano pieces from artists including Debussy, Philip Glass, Dr. John, Brother Theotis, and more. He also discusses Graze the Bell, a collection of solo piano pieces he released last week on RVNG Intl.Flow State also posed a few questions to Moore over email about his musical journey generally and his work on Graze the Bell in particular – that conversation follows the streaming links. While playing Graze the Bell, listen for the influences he discussed with Bob on the two Across the Horizon episodes. We’re pairing the new record with one of those influences, Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations, specifically the 1981 version, recorded a year before he passed away.Graze the Bell - David Moore (48m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / TidalGoldberg Variations (1981) - Glenn Gould (51m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / TidalWhat’s your earliest memory of music?It’s really just flashes of many memories more than any complete one, and it’s not even that I remember it physically, but I do remember this feeling of being a tiny little thing and always bashing away on pots and pans. Apparently I had this compulsion to empty the kitchen cabinets and arrange everything in a big drum set on the floor. Just BANG BANG BANG. Bless my parents for putting up with it honestly. Maybe something that’s underappreciated is that behind a lot of drummers are very patient parents.How did you start playing piano? What was the first piano you played?I started playing the piano when I was six years old. I told my folks I wanted to learn, so one day I came home and we had a piano in the basement. That’s how they were. It was this little Kimball spinet that we traded up for a Yamaha a few years later. As for when I feel like I really started PLAYING the instrument, that was later. I was one of two drummers in my high school jazz band when the pianist, who was quite good, died tragically in a car accident in the middle of sophomore year. They needed someone to replace her, and the teacher knew I studied classical piano so he sort of volun-told me to switch instruments mid-year. I didn’t know anything about improvising or about jazz, but as I started learning I just became obsessed. That’s when everything changed. I had clarity. By the end of that year I had effectively quit playing the drumset and oriented my whole life and future around the piano. I still think about that girl almost every day. To be quite frank it’s been a heavy debt to carry.What were the early records or songs that pointed you in the musical directions you ultimately pursued in your solo work and as Bing & Ruth?The first time I heard Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” it was less like I was hearing music and more like I was learning about a whole new sense. Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and… whatever this feeling was. It seems obvious, but the more you open yourself to being moved by music, the more you’ll get moved by music, and so it just kept happening. I found Bach, then Chopin and Debussy. Then as I got older and some of my mental health struggles started to present themselves, I had this whole special world I could go to for relief. By that point I also had McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans in the mix too. All this music became a ground to stand on when no other ground felt solid. Then, one day when I was 19 I stumbled into a Barnes & Noble in Kansas City and heard Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint, and everything just immediately clicked into place. That’s when the whole thing became about developing this language, a voice to channel the emotive qualities of this more romantic and impressionistic piano music I had been drawn to with the motion and philosophies of minimalist composition. I’m still eating off that sandwich to be honest.The new record is solo piano. Tell us about the experiences and motivations around focusing on the instrument in this form.Every direction I have grown as a performer, composer, and human has come out of the piano specifically. It has always been this window through which I looked at and tried to make sense of the world, and it’s where almost everything I do musically starts and returns to. So for Graze the Bell, there’s something in me that feels like it’s important to honor that source, because in the end what I’m honoring when I do that is the human singular. So much of music and the performing arts more broadly is about interplay – a reaction sprouting from the space between us, but there is something so different about performing alone. It lets you explore more thoroughly the context of being truly “solo” – of swimming in those deeper pools, so to speak. There is no consensus. There is no compromise. You live and die by your honesty, and that’s kind of the only thing I’m interested in these days. It’s why there’s no overdubs on the record. Even those felt dishonest in this context.What was the process of composing and recording these pieces? How much planning was done in advance versus impromptu playing?A lot of how I approach recording an album is just experimenting with different processes to see what yields the best results for that particular body of music. For Graze the Bell, the songs were all in a sort of incomplete completeness, but almost in this way where, like, the racecar is not finished until the race completes it. In that spirit, the full piece was mostly put together, because for these songs and the nature of how exposed you are in a solo context, it felt important that I approached the sessions more as a pianist than a composer. It’s different brains. I don’t know if it’s like that for everyone but it is for me. Practically speaking this meant that while I was in the studio, instead of going song by song until I had a take, I would just play for long stretches, cycling through different songs, sometimes the same one a few times in a row but mostly jumping around and changing things here and there – altering forms and pacing and dynamics in the moment. I knew I had the record after a couple days of that, but it took a while to sift through everything.How do you discover new music these days? Any recent notable finds?I don’t know why I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I use Shazam a lot. I try to keep my ears open and when I hear something I like I just point the robot at it. Living in a dense place like Brooklyn, especially on nice days you get all kinds of cool stuff from all over the world coming in through car windows, bluetooth speakers, etc. It’s just music everywhere. The most recent find was from a construction site on my block that was blasting this wild Malian stuff that had me in a FIT with an armful of groceries. Here’s the last few from my search history, starting with that:Ganda Fadiga - “Ouli Abidy Camara / El Geuje”Baba Rancho - “Viejo de Julio Aramburo la Bandononona”Jards Macalé - “Farinha do Desprezo”Snatam Kaur - “Ra Ma Da Sa”Name an underrated artist from the past 50 years.It’s got to be my favorite ambient artist Willamette. I don’t know much about them in a biographical sense, but they came on my radar via a friend a long time ago, and all three of their records are perfect. One in particular that deserves a highlight is called Always in Postscript. I was listening to that periodically over the years I was writing Bing & Ruth’s Tomorrow Was the Golden Age, and their sense of timing, ...
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Across the Horizon Ep. 57: David Moore (Pt. 1)
Jan 2100:59:50Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Across the Horizon, Bob Holmes from SUSS is joined once again by composer and pianist David Moore (Bing & Ruth, Cowboy Sadness). In this first of two parts, they discuss deep listening and solo piano pieces, including artists Glenn Gould, Morton Feldman, Sergei Prokofiev, and Emahoy Guèbrou. Bob and David also discuss the music and recording process behind David's forthcoming album of solo piano works, Graze the Bell. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 56: Six Missing
Jan 700:59:50Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Across the Horizon, Bob Holmes of SUSS is joined in this episode by co-host Six Missing aka TJ Dumser. Dumser is best known for his ambient and soundscape work, as well as his collaborations with Patrik Berg Almkvisth, Foam and Sand, Robert Koch and B9. One of his latest collaborations was with SUSS, which they discuss in this episode. Most surprisingly, TJ brings along a playlist of music that inspired his initial love for performing including Pink Floyd, Phish, Grateful Dead, Nels Cline, The Allman Bros., and many more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 55: Best of 2025 w/ Stephen Brower
Dec 300:59:55Tap to summarizeOn today’s episode of Across the Horizon, host Bob Holmes of SUSS is joined once again by Stephen Brower, Head of Music, US for Amazon Music and, more specifically, the curator of the “Cosmic Strings” playlist on Amazon Music. They list their favorite artists and music from 2025, including William Tyler, Steve Gunn, Julianna Barwick, Hayden Pedigo, Gwenifer Raymond, Mary Lattimore and many, many more. All Across the Horizon episode playlists are now available here.For Flow State we’re listening to two of the records highlighted in this conversation. First we’re playing Luke Schneider and Jamie Lidell’s collaboration from October, A Companion for the Spaces Between Dreams. We’ve featured Schneider’s work before, including his August record, For Dancing In Quiet Light. We’re also playing Patterner by Golden Brown, an ambient country record rooted in acoustic guitar with many effects applied to create atmosphere.A Companion for the Spaces Between Dreams - Luke Schneider & Jamie Lidell (44m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / TidalPatterner - Golden Brown (44m, no vocals)Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / TidalHave a great Wednesday. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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Across the Horizon Ep. 54: Jake Xerxes Fussell & James Elkington
Nov 1200:59:53Tap to summarizeIn the latest episode of the Across the Horizon podcast (formerly Ambient Country), host Bob Holmes (of SUSS) is joined by guitarist and folklorist Jake Fussell and his collaborator James Elkington who discuss their latest release, the soundtrack score to the film Rebuilding. Jake and Jim discuss their inspirations, including classic soundtracks from Angelo Badalamenti, Ry Cooder, Bruce Langhorne, and Daniel Lanois. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flowstate.fm/subscribe
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