Sudan Archives - Selfish Soul (Radio Date: 13-07-2022)

TRA LE REALTA' PIU' INTERESSANTI
DEL PANORAMA MUSICALE ATTUALE,
IN GRADO DI COMBINARE FIDDLE AFRICANI CON R&B,
VIOLINI ED ELETTRONICA SPERIMENTALE,

SUDAN ARCHIVES

presenta

'SELFISH SOUL'

IL PRIMO SINGOLO TRATTO DA 'NATURAL BROWN PROM QUEEN',
IL NUOVO ALBUM IN ARRIVO IL 9 SETTEMBRE
(STONES THROW RECORDS)

radio date: 13 luglio

'Natural Brown Prom Queen' è un psichedelico e magnetico assaggio
di R&B moderno, suona come qualcosa che non avete mai sentito

ad anticipare 'Natural Brown Prom Queen' il singolo 'Selfish Soul'



“Beyond its narrative sharpness, beyond its thematic generosity, the achievement of Natural Brown Prom Queen is, to me,
not just in how it will summon you towards movement, but also the many ways it does that summoning,
the many eras and sonic landscapes it calls to in order to do that work.”
Author and poet Hanif Abdurraqib on Natural Brown Prom Queen



Cantante, compositrice, violinista e producer, Sudan Archives è tra le realtà più interessanti del panorama musicale attuale. Il suo sound unico e distintivo fonde elementi di R&B al violino, sonorità africane con elementi di elettronica sperimentale e funk.

A due anni da 'Athena', il disco di debutto, Sudan Archives è pronta a tornare con 'Natural Brown Prom Queen', il nuovo album in arrivo il 9 settembre sempre su etichetta Stones Throw Records (Self), un lavoro che affronta i temi della razza, della femminilità e delle relazioni ferocemente leali ed amorevoli, al centro della vita di Sudan con la sua famiglia, i suoi amici, il suo partner, sia nella sua città adottiva di Los Angeles, sia a Cincinnati, dove è cresciuta. In oltre 18 brani, Sudan Archives interpreta Britt, la ragazza della porta accanto di Cincinnati che guida per la città con la capotte abbassata e si presenta al ballo di fine anno con un bikini rosa peloso ed il perizoma appeso alla gonna di jeans.

Sin da un primo ascolto, si percepisce immediatamente come 'Natural Brown Prom Queen' sia il suo disco più ambizioso ad oggi, tra la disco e le influenze R&B di 'Home Maker' (nominata da Pitckfork come' Best New Track') ai ritmi africani di 'Selfish Soul' ('Song You Need' per The Fader), all'hip-hop potente di 'OMG Britt' fino alla selvaggia 'NBPQ (Topless)' ed alla ballad di 'Homesick (Gorgeous & Arrogant)'.

Sudan Archives non ha paura di essere vulnerabile ed aperta riguardo alle sue insicurezze, suonando il violino a testa in giù su un palo in un video musicale, ma il disco riguarda anche il piacere ed i riconoscimenti ricevuti dal New York times, The Fader, FLOOD Magazine, Pitchfork, Stereogum, NYLON ed altri, dimostrano che Sudan è pronta per questo e per condividere questa gioia.

Sudan Archives in concerto per un'unica data italiana
4 novembre, Milano, Circolo Magnolia
info tour: Comcerto



SUDAN ARCHIVES
'NATURAL BROWN PROM QUEEN'
9 settembre
Stones Throw Records – Self

Album executive produced by Sudan Archives and Ben Dickey.
All tracks mixed by Blue May and mastered by Mike Bozzi at Bernie Grundman Mastering

SUDAN ARCHIVES - NATURAL BROWN PROM QUEEN

By Hanif Abdurraqib

Sudan Archives and I are both from cities that are not the cities that artists most famously long for. Cities in a landlocked state, the kind of cities that people maybe make it in, but mostly make it out of. Within the reality of whatever home is or isn’t, it is certainly something that happens to us, something that we define and redefine for ourselves through our living. If we’re lucky enough, home is something we carry with us and set down wherever we’re at. We get to live in our present while being an audience to our many pasts and the places that made us.

Natural Brown Prom Queen is an album of many movements and ruminations, but almost all of them trace back to the multiple ways that a person can find and re-find home. In flimsy, shifting geography, in the fights and triumphs that filter into interactions with beloveds and kinfolk, and, of course, the mighty work of home-making within oneself.

And speaking of homemaking, and all of the challenges of such architecture, I most love how this stunning album opens. The song “Home Maker” begins and stops and begins again and then becomes a few different songs even before a listener can take their shoes off and walk beyond the entryway. It is a min-suite of a tune unto itself, one minute in. It recreates the feeling of uncertainty that exists, stepping into any kind of newness. A reminder of how I, and how so many people I know and love have been fighting through grief, through rage, through the weight of all of the world’s ghosts weighing on them, and still doing the little things to make their space feel like theirs. Placing a plant in just the right spot. Finally taking out the recycling that had piled up during an especially sad week. Bringing some flowers in from outside and putting them in water.

And since the album itself does present as a glorious sonic and narrative container that is an ode to making homes and missing homes, and since the album itself is a type of home, it must be said that a real gift of this listening experience, too, is the homages to past songs that appear, serving as sort of old and cherished art on new walls. “Selfish Soul” using hair as a vessel to balance both pride and defiance to build up a stunning, anthemic tune, nodding to India Arie. And Chevy S10, a semi-ballad and semi-novel within a song, telling the story of a couple, against the odds, trying to make a way for themselves despite not having much of anything. The car is a portal, the car is also an obsession, the car is also a potential point of downfall, and those who know what’s good will already know by now that the great Tracy Chapman, one of Ohio’s most beloved writers, helps propel the making of this vision. Updated by the brilliance of Sudan Archives, of course, but still a rich portrait of people who believe that they can love each other hard enough that the love itself might offer freedom, even though a listener may know better. Even if the writer may know better. Even if the two lovers themselves may know better.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my newfound loneliness, born out of my isolated cavern of a home (that is, of course, furnished with many plants and corners of empty boxes that need to be recycled,) it is that the desire that overtakes me most, more than any other, is the desire to dance. You might feel this too. I do not necessarily mean any kind of all-out, room-to-room sprint of a dance where the dancer ends up gasping for air, covered in sweat in the middle of the day, though if that is your mode, I celebrate that, too. But I simply wish to be called to movement. If I cannot be in communion with people, I can at least be in communion with the celebration of what my body is capable of, for now. Small movements, blooming into slightly larger ones. Beyond its narrative sharpness, beyond its thematic generosity, the achievement of Natural Brown Prom Queen is, to me, not just in how it will summon you towards movement, but also the many ways it does that summoning, the many eras and sonic landscapes it calls to in order to do that work. “Freakalizer,” which sounds like something I’d sit by the radio, eager to record to cassette in the 90s, bouncing my shoulders all the way. “Milk Me,” which, even through its vulnerability and tenderness does not relent in its delivery of the kind of percussion that might have your head swirling as if it were gently unscrewed from its posts.

The trick of an album that is this communal is making every listener feel like they are, for a moment, your family, or your closest friend, even if they aren’t. And there is family – real family – present. A vocal sample from Sudan’s mother on “Do Your Thing,” a sermon from her father on “It’s Already Done,” odes to cousins and sisters and places where cousins and sisters lived and loved. Memory is a privilege and nostalgia is a trick. It can be a fool’s game, chasing after what was. But it can also be a gift. It can help unpack the endless boxes. It can furnish the place you never believed could feel like home.



Nata e cresciuta a Cincinnati, Ohio, Brittney Parks, in arte Sudan Archives si avvicina alla musica africana da autodidatta e, ispirata dai ritmi folk del nord Africa impara il violino suonando ad orecchio nel coro della chiesa del padre. All’età di diciannove anni si trasferisce a Los Angeles per studiare music technology e la produzione digitale; da qui, le prime composizioni in casa, mixando le sue composizioni realizzate al violino. Dopo un fortunato incontro con l’A&R di Stones Thow Record, Sudan Archives firma un contratto discografico con l’etichetta indipendente americana.

Nel 2017 arriva ‘Sudan Archives’, il primo ep co-prodotto da Matthewdavid (fondatore di Leaving Records). Il brano ‘Come Meh Way’ diventa ‘traccia dell’anno’ per NPR, Crack ed altri media di rilievo, mentre The Guardian la nomina tra gli artisti ‘to watch’. L’anno successivo è la volta di ‘Sink’, il secondo EP acclamato dal New York Times, Pitchfork e Vogue.

Nel frattempo Sudan Archives si esibisce in importanti festival tra cui Coachella, Pitchfork Midwinter, Field Day e divide il palco con artisti del calibro di St Vincent, Michael Kiwanuka, Ibeyi, Tune-Yards. Si è inoltre esibita alla Disney Hall di LA in occasione del tributo a Yoko Ono, suona shows ambient con lo pseudonimo di Sudan Moon ed è stata inclusa in una recente installazione di arte e musica al LACMA curata da Robert Rauschenberg.

A novembre 2019 pubblica 'Athena', il disco di debutto su etichetta Stones Throw Record: profondamente ambizioso, l'album rappresenta la forza di un’artista che è sempre andata oltre le classificazioni. In 'Athena' Sudan Archives ha collaborato con il produttore Washed Out, Paul White (Danny Brown, Charli XCX) e Rodaidh McDonald (The XX, Sampha, Adele), collaborazioni che le hanno permesso di aprirsi a nuove influenze e a dare un senso ai precedenti due EP, che ora più che mai ‘are like a haiku of what the album is’.