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. [1] 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". [2] [1] [3]
Critical reception
Professional ratings| Review scores |
|---|
| Source | Rating |
|---|
| Pitchfork | 8.0/10 [2] |
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." [2] Pitchfork would go on to name the album the thirteenth best of the 2020s so far. Exclaim! named the tracks "Well Bucket" and "Working It Out" staff picks upon their release ahead of the album in September. [4]
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". [5] 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". [6]
In 2025, Resident Advisor ranked Suntub at number 34 in their list of "The Best Electronic Records 2000–25"; [7] in the accompanying writeup, contributor Rachel Grace Almedia commented that "[ML Buch's] seven-string Stratocaster is her paintbrush, but through electronic manipulation—pitch-bends, DAW plugins, re-amps through car stereos—she completes her drifting avant-pop tour de force. Just like art, water and indeed the sun, Suntub is a regenerative life-giver. [7]
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