It’s time to meet Sudan Archives at her tempoIntroducing Gadget Girl: a valkyrie of technology who has soared to the pinnacle of music with her trusted machines by her side. Her Roland SP-404 sampler, MacBook Pro, Cantini Sonplus MIDI violin, DPA4088 CORE headset mic, and Sennheiser wireless transmitters have become her best friends. After an arduous heartbreak, she has receded into her laboratory, immersing herself in colourful wires and blinking lights. Finding solace after this separation, she moves into her next phase: one marked by creative technical mastery and fierce independence.
That’s the latest chrome-plated persona of MusicTech’s new cover star, Sudan Archives (real name Brittney Parks). Certain hallmarks – like her violin talent paired with her impressive ability to manipulate cultural genres with modern tech — have defined the vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist’s artistic profile since she released her self-titled debut EP in 2017. However, she has been envisioning the Gadget Girl figure for many years, declaring the accompanying narrative as the “strongest story” upon which she’s built an album.
Sudan Archives is on the MusicTech Cover. Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
“I feel ready. I’ve always wanted to present [Sudan Archives] this way, but I was just afraid,” she says.
The album in question is her third full-length LP, THE BPM, out next month via Sudan’s longtime label, Stones Throw Records. The restaurant where we meet for our breakfast interview is across the street from the label’s office in Highland Park, one of the trendiest neighbourhoods in Los Angeles. As we chat, adventurous neo-soul artists like Erykah Badu, N.E.R.D., and Solange play on the overheard stereo. We’re in the exact kind of place that would play music from Sudan’s previous eras, which were defined by artsy beats with an orchestral appeal. THE BPM, though, is an expertly produced foray into fiery, genre-adventurous electronic music.
The lead single, DEAD, combines dissonant layers, electronic hooks, ghostly vocal harmonies, and muscle-flexing sound design, all atop a fast-hitting kick drum alternating its patterns throughout the four-minute runtime. It’s a lot, but with Sudan’s first-rate production skills, everything fits together with intricate detail.
Sudan also wrote her first full-on rap song, MY TYPE, on this album. Her smooth flow circles over a seething house beat punctuated by even more intentionally placed mechanical buzzes, scrapes, and percussion hits. As she deconstructs her bars in real time, she also breaks down the beat into syncopated fills and a raw, minimalist skeleton.
Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
“The album’s called THE BPM because I knew I wanted to make [music with] faster BPMs. I didn’t conform it to a specific sound, I just knew I wanted it to be a certain speed,” Sudan says. A central reason for picking up the tempo is her live show. “In the past, a lot of people viewed me as this spectacle. They weren’t really dancing. The music wasn’t really danceable either, because the BPM was more of [a] midtempo, trip-hop vibe. I was tired of people just staring.”
But the shift also went deeper. In the past, she executive-produced her albums alongside a collaborator, and though she did work with others on THE BPM – people she knew intimately – she was firmly in the driver’s seat for this record.
“I knew exactly what I wanted.” Sudan says. “All of the ideas came from my bare self. I wasn’t getting a bunch of beats from people and rapping and singing to them. It was coming from my heart.”
Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
The people Sudan did have around her, helping write and produce a significant portion of the album, were family. Years ago, she was in a group with her cousin and twin sister, which she describes as a Christian take on Destiny’s Child. As she developed her career, they followed other paths.
“Now, since my career’s gotten to this point, they don’t think of working with me that way, but I was like, ‘No, let’s all work together.’ We’re all still great songwriters,” Sudan says. “I wanted to show them how easy it is to still be in that world, and it really made them feel good. It just feels good to be able to write with your family. It was really fun to bring them on this project because we hadn’t done it in a while.”
By revisiting her formative musical experiences, Sudan felt comfortable expressing a part of her creativity and personality on THE BPM that she hadn’t in any of her prior professional applications. This side especially came out on boisterous banger MS. PAC MAN, which Sudan says would not have existed if she weren’t in the studio with her cousin.
“A lot of people viewed me as this spectacle. They weren’t really dancing”
“She was screaming, ‘Put it in my mouth!’, being silly and stupid. She literally did that as a joke, and I was joking back and started doing the song with her,” Sudan recalls. “I’m very silly, but I never really show that side.”
THE BPM was mostly made in Sudan’s home base of Los Angeles. But to further her familial connection to the album, she polished things off in two other cities, both historic incubators for American dance music: Chicago, where her dad hails from, and Detroit, her mother’s home city (and where her cousins went to school with the iconic producer and fellow Stones Throw artist, J Dilla).
Dance music wasn’t a major rotation for Sudan when she was growing up, but she feels a strong connection to the genre simply because of her parents’ respective hometowns. “On top of wanting to make faster records, I should pay homage to where they’re from. That’s why I wanted to finish it there,” she says.
Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
With the album mostly complete by the time she headed to the Midwest, Sudan focused on a specific characteristic of the album while in each city. In Detroit, she refined the drums, working with her cousin’s partner, Eric Terhune, an accomplished producer who’s made beats for prominent Detroit rappers such as Sada Baby. While he didn’t have any classic techno hardware like a Roland TB-303 or TR-909, he had plenty of emulators in his primary DAW, FL Studio.
“I would give him a song, he would rework it, and the drums would sound way more techno,” Sudan recalls. “The drums were there, but I really feel like he changed the sound. Going to Detroit changed the sound of the drums.”
Sudan went to Chicago for a session with Black chamber music collective D-Composed. Chicago is known for dance music with a string-driven flair, and this session ended up creating a compelling dichotomy between her initial recordings and the full quartet.
“I’m very silly, but I never really show that side”
“It needed to sound fuller. Half the strings [on the album] were me, quarter-inch [direct input] in with an acoustic/electric violin, and I did a lot of layering. Then we sprinkled in the quartet on top of it,” Sudan explains. “It feels like it was a lo-fi/hi-fi orchestral mix of these high-resolution sounding strings versus my lo-fi strings. Then we figured out ways to blend them together.”
Sudan specifically mentions the string work on A BUG’S LIFE, in which the glistening sound of the quartet balances perfectly with the wavy electric feel of Sudan’s contribution. Another is YEA YEA YEA, where the strings gracefully bridge the verses and choruses and close the song on a sombre note – above a full-bodied trap kick.
For Sudan, who has been playing violin since she was a child, the instrument is intertwined with a sense of technological advancement. She got her first electric violin around the same time she started making beats on her iPad, and had her life changed by African Electronic Music 1975-1982, the album by Cameroonian pioneer Francis Bebey. “It changed my whole perspective on incorporating your instruments with electronic music,” Sudan recalls. “That moment will never be forgotten, and I will always use that inspiration. It was so cool to me how he made things danceable but kept the sound of traditional instruments.”
Image: Ben Bentley for MusicTech
Sudan is continuing to experiment with the form and function of the violin as she prepares for an album tour that will take her to celebrated venues such as Paradiso in Amsterdam and Roundhouse in London. She’s developing a wireless system where she can point her bow at different objects to change lighting colours on stage or trigger a cracking effect in an LED screen. She’s also interested in syncing pieces of the songs within Ableton Live so she can control loops with the movement of her bow.
It’s no surprise Sudan would be keen to augment the violin – after all, it’s a key piece of the Gadget Girl’s arsenal and one of her closest companions. Just as Gadget Girl leaned on her technological cohorts to face hardships, Sudan relied on her musical instruments and tools to get through her own personal challenges as she was making THE BPM.
“All of the ideas came from my bare self… It was coming from my heart”
“I sold my house. I broke up with my ex. I was going through all of this during the album being made,” Sudan says. “Then, right when it was done, everything ended. It’s almost like the album was a reset.”
What comes after a reset? For Sudan, it’s her fastest body of work to date, backed by the strongest story she’s ever woven into an album, presented with her most ambitious live show of her career. Welcome to Sudan Archives’ new era.
Sudan Archives’ THE BPM is out October 17 via Stones Throw.
Words: Harry Levin
Photography: Ben Bentley
Styling: Justus Steele
Makeup: Selena
Location: StuSpaceLA
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