Call her, beep her, if you want to reach her
Whenever I prepare to interview someone, my algorithm reflects my research. Most recently, the internet has begun to show me violin travel cases and other wood-instrument-specific accoutrements — because this week, I’m speaking to Sudan Archives. My personal introduction to Sudan Archives was via her first EP, Sink back in 2018. 19 minutes of self assured lyrics and genre defying beats – it was a forceful entrance. Her debut album Athena and sophomore album, Natural Brown Prom Queen both solidified her position as one to watch, delving deeper – engaging with themes of heritage, tradition, family, identity, nostalgia, sexuality and authenticity.
Now, Sudan is back in full force with The BPM. I actually heard the first single, DEAD by happy accident – when Chanel used it on their Chanel Fall-Winter 2025/26 Haute Couture runway. This album, which earned an impressive 8.4 on Pitchfork, if you care, is even more sure-footed than its predecessors. I dare you to listen to it without dancing. Sudan emerges fully formed: assertive, frank, and more self reflective than ever, but she’s also looser, funnier. But; this should come as no surprise, she’s said it herself, she’s “deep and insightful and also fucking silly”. Even more importantly, Sudan doesn’t actually care if you like her – or her music. She wants to make you feel something.
When we link up, Sudan is sat in front of a wall of instruments – they’re all string instruments, and some I recognise, some I don't. The conversation flows so naturally that I forget all my rehearsed questions. It’s clear that she lives and breathes music, and she is her own muse. We talk about making authentic content, sci-fi movies, and being Kim Possible. She lights up showing me her favourite pedals, and we geek out about tone.
Authentic feels like a word that is overused especially in music journalism … but I’ve decided it is totally appropriate here. With Sudan, there is no pretense, and no bullshit. What you see is what you get, and what you get is 10/10.
You can catch Sudan Archives in Australia:
Sun 1 March 2026 – Perth Festival – Perth, WA
Tue 3 March 2026 – Northcote Theatre – Melbourne, VIC
Wed 4 March 2026 – Metro Theatre – Sydney, NSW
Thu 5 March 2026 – The Triffid – Brisbane, QLD
Mastercard Presale: Friday 7 November, 9am – Monday 10 November, 9am
Secret Sounds Presale: Monday 10 November, 10am – Tuesday 11 November, 10am
Tickets on sale: Tuesday 11 November, 11am via secretsounds.com
And listen to The BPM now.
Congratulations on the new album.
I think it’s phenomenal.
Thank you.
I guess if we can launch straight into my big questions – there seem to be a lot of visual influences that are quite sci-fi, quite hyper modern. What was the influence for The BPM? Like, is the album intentionally referencing speculative fiction?
I think it has a strong sci fi reference because – I don't know about a lot of sci fi movies and stuff, but when I do watch them, I wouldn't say I’m like a sci-fi nerd, but it's definitely, like, my theme of life. Whenever I’m watching a movie I’m trying to find a really cool sci-fi movie. But it’s not so much inspired by specific characters, but I guess you could say it’s like it's its own Kim Possible vibe, or basically a female Batman.
It gives me a lot of Fifth Element energy.
I really love that because
I just love that movie. That was one of my favourite movies. Minority Report, one of my favourite movies.
And, yeah, just anything sci-fi related. But for the most part, I just use so many gadgets in my real life. So I just try to connect one and two.
And instead of hiding the gadgets on stage, you know – you use a lot of gadgets on stage and people try to hide them. I'm just trying to, like, put it to the forefront of things and make it, like, a whole vibe.
My boyfriend's a bit of a music nerd and he is always craning to see what pedals people are using. I think it's nice to invite the audience into that element and actually display what it is that you're doing. What you do with your violins is incredible, but it must take so much technical knowledge because I know it can’t be like playing a classical violin.
Yeah, I think the main thing about what I do, I think that might be the most hardest part. I feel like with classical violin, it's all about mastering the instrument and being as technical as you can, in the way you play it.
But I think what I'm trying to master is the tone. Because I have an electric violin, and I perform with that, and I have a headset mic because it's better for feedback, but also, I'm putting it through all of these really cool pedals and stuff, but it’s really hard to get a really good “violin” sound out of the electric violin. So, I've been for years just trying to get a clean tone before I add all the effects and stuff, you know?
Um, I only managed to get through two years of violin lessons before my parents decided that they didn't want to buy me a new one every time you get bigger.
Well, with my program, I rented [a violin] when I was young, it was really cool because you only had to pay like $11 a month, but it was like a renting program. And then it was like what you were putting down, what you were spending every month was going towards the instrument, which is really cool.
Is there a particular pedal that you like?
My favourite pedal is the Afterneath pedal, I have all these pedals around me right now – but this [Pitch Fork] is one of my favourite ones, because it basically pitches the the violin down an octave, or, like, into a weird key, so you can get a cello or a bass sounding sound out of it. And I've created a lot of, like, my bass lines with it.
Oh, wait, here's one right here. This [Afterneath] one's my favourite pedal, because it creates an ambient effect and it sounds really reverb-y.
This one kind of makes it sound like, really psychedelic and stuff. I like that a lot.
Actually my cousin's in town right now and she's like, you need to make content. So we are trying to basically make a bunch of content and stuff. And she has all these ideas. But when she realised that I was just a nerd about stuff like this, she was like, "Oh, you should just make content like that." So I feel like when we get off the interview, we're gonna do, like, a video of me just trying out all the pedals or something.
For context we have a lot of guitar pedals in our house although I never really know what they all do.
Um, I'm obsessed. An earthquaker pedals, they gave me a lot, and they give me a good discount – they're from Ohio too.
So I have literally have like … this one's really weird because basically it's an overdrive, but depending on what liquid you put on it, affects the sound. So, if you play the violin and pour liquid in it, it'll make a different sound. It says “pour liquid here”.
It feels counterintuitive to put liquid into something electric.
I know. It says, blend any kind of liquids together to make your own overdrive and tone.
That sounds fun. Do you find that just playing is part of your process? Or do you try and keep play separate from work?
The play is just…
My process, yeah. And then, if anything, what separates the music from work, it’s being able to collect all these really cool traditional instruments* and I learn how to play those, and that’s my hobby. But, yeah, for the most part, whenever I'm experimenting with the pedals and the stuff, it turns into a song.
When you're learning particular different instruments or whatever, are you going and seeking out people to teach you or are you just getting the instrument and having a noodle around on your own?
Yeah, I was taking fiddle lessons for a while before tour, because that's kind of how I started violin, in fiddle club. He was basically teaching me my own songs, but like, we were just kind of going more dirty with it, and making exercises based off of the songs. And then, even with the violin tone, there's a specific thing called an impulse response, and basically, it's like, you have all these pedals, but you need to get a really good sound and the very first pedal should be something to get your sound clean. And with electric violins – because electric guitars sound way better than electric violins – but with electric violins, you put an impulse response first, it basically makes it not sound like a tinny violin, like, really ugly, to a regular violin.
So then you have this, like, wooden sound with an electric violin.
And I feel like a lot of electric violinists don't know that, and they end up just putting, like, effects on it without getting the tone right first.
It's really interesting to me that tone is so particularly important, primarily.
You get so many weird sounds out of the violin. Ever since I realised you can amplify the violin, it's all about, okay, what else can I get out of it? Like, as far as sounds? Because even just when you amplify the violin, even when you hit it, it creates a drum sound. So that I would be like making these drum loops by just hitting it and doing weird stuff to it.
And then that would be the sound of the song. It would add really cool textures and stuff.
So you're your whole band with one instrument.
Yeah.
And then do you go in and fill in those spaces with other instruments later on?
Yeah, like sometimes I'll even be like, uh, that really didn’t sound that good. And then I'll send that reference of this bass violin to the actual base player and be like … can you replay that?
Sometimes I use it as references to just show people like, this is the idea I'm going for, can you, like, you know, expand on that?
Yeah. So the violin is like the mood board and then people can extrapolate what you mean from that. You use the violin kind of like as a translation from what it is that you're trying to say.
Yeah, because I don't even understand music theory.
So it's even like a way to explain notes and stuff because I'm just playing out, oh, play these notes. You know, it's like a way to communicate music theory to other people.
And then they can reverse engineer it for you.
Yeah.
Do you have a favourite song on the album?
I feel like She’s Got Pain?
It’s so good.
Narratively, I like it a lot because it's the turning point of the album when Gadget Girl takes over. So she's basically looking at the human me and trying to convince her to become full Gadget Girl so she can have a better life.
And then also, I really like that song in general, because it has a really cool violin riff.
Okay I mean this as the highest compliment, but it reminded me so much of the Corrs.
It's got that really, like, quite powerfully, almost Irish violin energy.
It’s an Irish vibe for sure. A lot of my music is inspired by Irish jigs. Like, so good.
Even hearing it for the first time, I felt like I'd heard it before because it's. It's referential to stuff that I've heard, but it was brand new, obviously, as well. I have gotten into trouble singing along to Ms. Pac-Man out loud with my headphones on. So thank you for that.
That part is so silly. I wouldn't have made that song if it wasn't for her. You see her head? She's my cousin and she's from Detroit. So when I went to Detroit, she was like, you only sing about love.
Can you sing about some shit that I actually want to hear? Like, some girl’s a boss bitch shit? And I was like, okay.
And then we were just, like, having fun one day, like, um, yelling and rapping and she said, “put it in my mouth”. She said that line. And then I just started, like, riffing off of that.
It's so good. It's so much fun. It reminds me of like … A$AP Rocky meets TLC.
Oh, that’s so cool I love that. I feel like I get the A$AP Rocky reference.
Yeah, it reminded me of Peso, particularly.
Ooo I think the beat kind of reminds me of that now…
And I’m obsessed with the film clip, I love the gadget Girl outfit with all of the chords and the tubes. Did you collaborate with somebody on that or was that straight Sudan?
I collaborated with my stylist at the time, Justice, because I showed him, I drew out, kind of like wires coming out of my boobs, and how I want gadgets to kind of be on my belt, and then he took it to this place in the Fashion District, and then he brought the vision to life and kind of like, added his ideas. But I really want to try to get a couple of those made for the tour, you know?
There's some comments on the youtube page for the video of [Ms PacMan] where some commenters describe you as fearless. Do you feel like that's a word that you identify with?
Um, sure, but … Yeah, I guess. Um … fearless. Yeah, I guess you could say that.
That song got the most like different kind of feedback, too. Like, people were saying, oh, my gosh, she’s fearless, and then even some Stones Throw [her record label] fans are like, this isn't music, oh no. Like, because I've never really made a song like that … I don't know what to call it, that type of style, but I've never made a song like that, so I feel like a lot of people do like it, but Stones Throw fans because they're used to just like, boom, bap.
And that it is very just silly. Brainless. Brainless activity song. I felt, out of all of the songs I've released, I felt the most human releasing that song because it got, like, different types of feedback. Usually people are like, oh, she plays the violin. This is nice. But it was very disruptive, is what I'm trying to say. That song. Because people are like, I hate it or I love it or they don’t know what to think about it, you know?
Because I don't want people just to like me. You know, I want people to feel strongly about me.
You don't even have to like me. Just have just, I want them to have, like, a strong feeling.
Do you think it makes you want to make more music that might be disruptive?
Yeah, because I feel for some reason, kind of coasted in a likeliness of people and in a specific lane.
And I don't know if that's because my music has been gatekept in a way, because it's just the normalcy of like, how things, how musicians are placed in festivals and the booking agencies and how you're only kind of like, in a certain world, I wonder.
You know what I mean?
You wonder if like, if you were given the opportunity to be put in different spaces, if this might have happened earlier?
Yeah. But regardless, as sci-fi is this album is, it’s doing stuff like this where it's like the Gadget Girl is highlighting this crazy person. The Gadget Girl is almost highlighting this personality of Sudan and, like, advancing it. So then she makes a song like Pac-Man and
then she makes a song like The BPM. And I think what I'm trying to say is even though that's very sci-fi, like narratively, it feels the most human because it's getting way more different feedback from a lot of different perspectives of feedback versus just, like, a mild coast of likeliness.
I think that that's actually a really great way to take on board any kind of criticism, because anything that you do – people are going to want to give you their opinions on it. And so being able to like take it on board as, as like strong feelings and turn it back into something else is really the best way.
You know, that's what artists are for.
Like, you're blessed to be able to do what you love. That's good, but you're gonna be, like, criticised 'cause you're art now. You're art to people. So they're going, like, judge you. And I feel like it's good because don’t nobody want to be liked by everybody anyway?
Like, don't like my stuff. But then, ask yourself that question, why don't you even like it?
It's just like, that whole game is, I guess, my duty to the world as [sings] Kim Possible.
That sounds pretty damn fearless to me.
Fin.
*ed’s note: Sudan had eight or so instruments hanging behind her
Words by Isabelle Webster / Images by Yanran Xiong
MORE LIKE THIS
