Sudan Archives On Being An Anime Character And Influencing The Next Pop Sound

At the end of August, I headed down to All Points East to lose my voice screeching along to Caroline Polachek, drool at every single drummer on stage and see out festival season sobbing at James Blake singing a Joni Mitchell Cover. But most importantly while I was there, I interviewed Sudan Archives. We spoke about her recently released album ‘Natural Brown Prom Queen’ as well as her relationship with her violin and what she would be like if she was an anime character!

Sudan’s music is often called genre-defying but even that feels like a lazy way to describe her work. Instead, it can just be said that Sudan is a force. As I walked into her set at All Points East, I saw the crowd dancing to the title track of the album with refrains like ‘I’m not average’ and ‘I just wanna have my titties out’ sung down her Britney spears-esque microphone and sandwiched between violin solos. This ability to take the crowd by the hand and lead them into her world was refined during her childhood where Sudan taught herself to play the violin at church by jamming along to the choir learning how “to feel it and make other people feel it, make people cry”.After a brief stint in a pop duo N2 with her twin sister, Sudan went on to study ethnomusicology and has cited Irish fiddle music and African musicians such as Francis Bebey and Asim Gorashi as influences. In 2017 she released her debut EP under the name Sudan Archives and since then she’s been gloriously combining all her experience and influences to forge a new sound.

Hi Sudan! Thanks for talking to me today, I'm just going to start by asking you what your pronouns are?

I guess you can call me she/they or whatever you know I don't give a fuck but usually I just go by Sudan. I feel like I've been on that pronoun shit since I was 16. People don't really know that. I was like, Mom, I don't like Brittney, It’s not giving, it’s too girly. I need something androgynous and just cool. She was like what about Sudan? You know? So, I kind of feel like I've been on that wave since I was 16. Now everyone just caused me Sudan you know.

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Okay cool! I read that you studied ethnomusicology at college, how did you find learning about music this way, like moving past a Western canon of like old white men and getting into like much more diverse music?

Yeah! I don't want to sit in an orchestra and play a white man's music all day, what do I look like to you? They’re dead now for a reason. It's kind of crazy but it's kind of cool to remember the past and respect the elders but I hope some of them weren't slave owners. I ain't playing that shit. The fuck I look like! Also, it’s helped me to like create, like the coolest string arrangements that I think are like, out there because I’m coming from a different approach. Even the way the violin is played outside of the west sounds more like a conversation, it's different than classical music.

Do you ever feel like you’re in conversation with your violin?

Yeah!

And when you're songwriting go you guys ever fight? Like do you ever get frustrated with each other?

Yeah, I'm like “shut up bitch! Like shit just don't say nothing” and she's like “you don’t understand” and then “I'm like you don’t understand shit bitch I've been doing this longer than you” and she's like “I've been doing this since 4th grade you've just started singing bitch fall back into line” I mean I’m the leader of the conversation with her but like when I'm drunk and writing it’s just like a hot mess! Although I've been playing since I was in fourth grade I’ve actually just started getting violin lessons because I can afford them now. It's cool because my teacher applies the theory to my songs, so it clicks better. It made me think that maybe we should always learn this way, like fiddle around and do your think you know? Like don’t even think about theory and then after when you’ve made work and art then you can learn the technicality of it all. Some people tell me when they learn the math first, it limits them and their creativity.

Yeah! It’s so intimidating approaching a personal and creative mode of expression through rules and strictness, especially when you’ve just started something new. I think we're going about things in the wrong order, it’s so strange to put those kinds of constraints on self-expression.

Yeah, like now I'm learning stuff like; oh, this sounds in D major, this is the scale C major, these are the notes major and I already know all those things I do it naturally but it’s only just clicked.

I guess it’s nice to learn now too because some of your songs like Glorious are outside of western tunings anyway. Do you think that that was influenced by your studies?

To be honest, my violin was just out of tune and I was probably drunk. Somebody was like, this isn't you know this isn't even a tuning, but I was like it sounds good and I like it! In general, it’s interesting though because I think the combination of violin and vocals hasn’t really been done a lot in pop music yet and although I wouldn't call myself a pop artist, but I do feel like I'm going to influence the next pop sound.

I was thinking about that when I was watching you! Like how your work feels so singular in an industry where cis white men playing guitars still have such a cultural hegemony but you disrupt that notion when you’re on stage by showcasing an alternative and proving that another instrument can also carry that ‘rockstar’ cache!

Like I'm trying to be that bro guitar guy but the sexy female black version with a violin and big tits instead. Destroying those guys, just shooting them with my tits. sudan giggles I think if I was an anime character I’d have huge tits and I'd play the violin and my power would be to make men suck my tits!

Kind of like a modern pied piper! So, you have a new album Natural Brown Prom Queen coming out soon. How are you feeling about it? Your last album came out before the pandemic, did you experience a creative shift during the time in between albums from being isolated from the rest of the world for a while?

I started getting real homemade even though I've always been very DIY and with this album everything was made in the basement, in my studio. I just like went in and if I was working with other people then I would just send them the track. I told them to send me things if they thought they were good and then if I liked it then I'd add it in. So it felt like I had more control over making the album.

Yeah, it must have been amazing to have less interference in the process.

Yeah, and then more collaborators because in normal times it would be strange for me to go to a studio every other day. But if I sent it tracks people and I'm like do something that you like and them I'm like I don’t like that, I like that then I just put it all together by myself.

“I started getting real homemade even though I've always been very DIY and with this album everything was made in the basement, in my studio.”

That’s so cool! In your writing process what tends to influence you, is it personal experiences?

Yeah. This is all like, personal experiences. I just realised my music is always about a bitch that got me fucked up or love. It's only about that, like Nont For Sale is about “bitch you gotta me fucked up” and then Come Meh Way is like “squishy squish I love you (come squish in my pussy come squish in me”. So I guess I tend to write either about love or hate? Yeah.

And I saw that on the visuals for this album you’re working with Augusta YR, she's amazing I love her work!

She's so weird. I love it. When I saw the treatment, I was just like not that one thing because that shit makes me feel weird, but the rest of the whole thing yeah let’s do it! There was like one scene where there were just like hella eyeballs everywhere. I was like I can’t. I think I have trypophobia, fear of holes. I was like it’s crazy, fuck the eyes but I'm doing it!

So where are you headed after this? Are you staying around in London for a bit?

I'm leaving tomorrow morning going to Stockholm! I'm doing all the festival runs and I'm just practicing what my homecoming tour set is going to be like. I'm using this time to figure things out and practice.

Yeah, I feel like it's actually quite nice practice space because sometimes at festivals you might have people in the crowd who don’t know your music as well and you have to win them over.

Right! So I start to know what hits or not.

I thought that was so impressive earlier when you were playing at 4pm but everyone was so into it even though they might’ve just arrived.

People are just like not ready to turn up yet! But I felt like I was getting them like I was awaking them. It was fun and I'm trying to have more fun!

Words: Issey Gladston | Photography: Ally Green