Suntub

Suntub is the second studio album by Danish musician ML Buch, released on 27 October 2023 through 15 Love. Buch self-produced and played all instruments on the album aside from several drum recordings, working on it over the span of five years. It received acclaim from critics, appearing on several lists of the best albums of 2023.

Background and recording
Buch spent five years making Suntub, which she explained was "the time it needed"; for three of those years she lived in the "countryside by the ocean", explaining that she "need[ed] to be on [her] own to make this music". Buch played all instruments, and produced and mixed the record herself, aside from several drum recordings played by her friend Tanya. Buch recorded her vocals in her car and reamped her guitar through her car's stereo as well as "in Kalundborg swimming pool, sauna, [and] changing room".

Critical reception
Suntub was released to critical acclaim. Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork stated that Suntub "focuses on more abstract and corporeal themes" than Buch's debut album Skinned (2020), and replaces that album's "overtly electronic elements" with "sparkling guitars, frictionless rock drumming, and vocal melodies rendered with airbrushed clarity". Sherburne concluded that "Outwardly, Suntub is so glossy that it suggests a kind of normcore, a pastiche of gentle alt-rock. Below the surface, however, Buch's strange curves and fleshless hands point in a far more cryptic direction." Exclaim! named the tracks "Well Bucket" and "Working It Out" staff picks upon their release ahead of the album in September.

Exclaim! ranked the album the ninth best album of 2023, with the publication's Kaelen Bell describing it as "pastoral art rock imbued with heaving, sticky humanity, a place where past and present collide constantly to create entirely new forms" as well as having a "MIDI-warped landscape, an alien environment sketched in silvery riffs and dewy electronics". Gorilla vs. Bear ranked it the second best album of 2023, calling it "the most soothing and unsettlingly beautiful record of the year" that "envelops the listener in an otherworldly cocoon by tapping into some uncanny, unshakeable deja-vu" and "feels very real, like a gleaming, half-remembered soft-rock mirage you keep hearing in your warmest, fuzziest dreams".

Personnel

 * ML Buch – vocals, all instruments, producer, mixing
 * Tanya – several drum recordings
 * Amir Shoat – mastering