How singer-songwriter-violinist-producer Sudan Archives uses EQD effects pedals to expand the sound of her songs and music.
Malcolm X Abram
L.A. based singer-songwriter-violinist-producer Sudan Archives was having a pretty good 2020. The suburban Cincinnati native, born Brittney Parks dropped Athena, her debut full-length album in winter 2019 on veteran indie label Stones Throw Records which also released her 2017 self-titled EP and its follow-up Sink in 2018. Athena received critical acclaim from mainstream and alternative publications, including Variety, Pitchfork and Vogue and was named a top 10 album of 2020 by the New York Times. Athena’s 14 tracks highlight her smooth, layered vocals, and violin-laced left-of-center R&B grooves and melds the intimate bedroom D.I.Y. aesthetic of her early EPs with a deeper mix, an expanded sonic palette and production with a few guest musicians.
Along with her love of the violin, Archives confesses to being a collector of instruments and a growing effects pedal board that includes several EarthQuaker Devices: Hoof Reaper, Disaster Transport SR, Avalanche Run, Aqueduct and an Organizer.
In the second week of March 2020, Archives and a string quartet performed a set for NPR’s beloved Tiny Desk concert series and she was ready for a summer filled with music festival dates and headlining club gigs. Then the live music industry ground to a pandemic-induced halt, leaving Archives with a lot of time to build a new basement studio with her boyfriend and dive deep into her expanding stash of gear.
Photo by Jack McKain.
EQD: So your 2020 was going to be a big year, with the Tiny Desk and festival and such?
SA: I was getting exciting about [Barcelona music festival] Primavera [Sound]. I was going to have a lot of festivals and stuff but everything just cut off.
EQD: Then what?
SA: Basically I’ve just been trying to nerd out. What I do best is make music in my bedroom. I had a little basement so me and my boyfriend made it into a proper kind of studio. I’ve been trying to collect as many things as possible to make music with and learn some mixing tips because I’m really passionate about learning how to do that. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Just getting lost in the gear.
EQD: Have you always been a gear head?
SA: I feel like I’ve always been a gear head but I actually have some money now.
EQD: Were you a GarageBand kid?
SA: I’m such a GarageBand kid. GarageBand is my shit because even if you don't have a computer you can do it on your iPhone. GarageBand is the only DAW that you can do on your iPhone so there’s no excuse for us to not be able to make music.
EQD: What was your first studio setup like?
SA: I legit was comfortable with my iPad. When I got my iPad I was like yeah “no one can stop me, man”. I really felt like that. I made a whole EP off my iPad. One of my friends gave me his old MacBook. It kind of farted some times. I felt like the iPad was probably a little faster than the computer but I guess that helped me. I used that to start making more stems with my songs. But I don't really think it helped me much. When I started to run out of room in Highland Park, CA., and I had my iPad and my laptop and I was working, that’s when I felt like yeah, I can do this. I made both my EPs in that bedroom.
EQD: And what was your first effects pedal?
SA: My first pedal was the [Boss] RC300. It comes with some effects. You can make it sound like a monster and there's a cheesy flanger and these weird effects in there. They’re kind of cheesy, but they’re kind of cool. I just remember I liked the fact that I had three sections to loop stuff and one section could be the violin, and the second was probably a violin pitched down that sounded like a bass line, and the third was some vocals that was just part of the hook. And I would just perform songs like that live.
EQD: Being able to arrange on the fly with the RC300 was probably a big moment.
SA: Yeah, it was a big moment for me. It’s not about how much stuff you have, but just being able to get the idea out and being able to flow with it. That’s when it started to click for me that this could be a whole set if I want. And I remember literally being like, spoons or anything that made cool noises, I would try to mic and just get cool sounds. That was my first [pedal], and my next one was the Line 6.
EQD: So what’s the current rig? You and your boyfriend just up the game, right?
SA: I’m trying to up my pedal board game right now. The first EQD pedals I had my boyfriend gave to me. He said “You should put your violin through them.” He gave me the Disaster Transport SR and the Hoof Reaper. At first I was like, what the heck? This is a lot going on right there. But I really like the Hoof Reaper because I do this thing on my violin where I hit the bridge and you can kind of make a drum beat. But you can only get the sound to be really big if you have some type of thing that makes it sound bigger. The Hoofer Reaper makes the little percussion things sound loud. I really like the Pitchfork from EXH. I was in a violin shop and they said that the Pitchfork sounds really good on violin because you can get really cool octaves and I’m always trying to find a way to play the violin but make it sound like a cello; like really, really deep. Then I got some more EQD pedals. I like the Organizer because it sounds creepy. I’ve been messin' around with it. I just made a song with it that I’m really excited about. It’s all violin but I use the pedals. I purposely try to do a violin arrangement, but then I did some other violin sounds, and made them sound like they’re not violins. I do it all the time. And the Organizer sounds like an organ when I play the violin. Then when I was using the Aqueduct it sounded like (makes screeching, angry cat sound) a weird whistle or something, a wind instrument and it makes all these weird violin effected sounds and then a main orchestral violin sounding arrangement and it sounds cool. And I just do that to make my demos and get ideas down, but it’s nice to have a lot of textures going on.
EQD: Are you writing a lot with your down time?
SA: I’ve been writing so much. I’ve never written so much in a short amount of time. Usually it takes me a long time because I’m touring, or even before touring, I was working a lot so it was, “Oh, in a year I made an EP!” But I literally feel like I have 17/18 songs and demos that I made in my basement.
EQD: Will you have a new record soon?
SA: I have no idea. I thought it would be kind of cool to release a quarantine basement album or something. I have the songs and I feel like I can make more. But I’m trying to figure out who exactly I want to work with on it. Or do I want to do it on my own and just get it mixed or if I want a co-producer or specific mixer. Trying to figure all that out.
EQD: You were a solo bedroom studio artist, but for Athena you worked with other musicians for the first time, How was that new experience?
SA: It’s really hard (laughs). When you start that way you don’t want to work with anyone. You just want to stay the same. I started in my bedroom for a reason, maybe because I’m just that type of person. I don’t really put myself out there like that, you know? And I was comfortable with making music and putting it on Soundcloud and living my life. So, it is like a new thing and you kind of have a fear of someone taking over and giving up control. Even the last album, I feel like I was in situations where I felt like I was unappreciated or being taken advantage of because of politics in business. And you really have to put yourself in all these situations so you know what you do and what you don’t like.
EQD: So given all of that and with a bit of time passing, how do you feel about Athena as your artistic statement.
SA: I feel like it’s my statement. But I learned my lesson. I’m only going to work with the people it makes sense to work with. You gotta find your inner circle. I like working with my boyfriend and I like working with people that understand what I’m doing sonically. I don’t think I’m going to be as open to getting into a lot of sessions with a lot of different people. I think the album I put out now is going to have to be like: this person is overseeing the whole thing and then my circle is going to always be there to help me with what I’m doing.
EQD: You’re into being a mixer. Is that new or have you always been an aspiring fader fondler and knob twiddler?
SA: I’ve always been a knob twiddler. I’ve always been fucking around. I’m not going to say it always sounded good, but in a weird way it probably created my sound. I remember on Come Meh Way [from her debut EP] and older songs like Nont For Sale [from Sink] sometimes I feel like “damn, I put hella reverb on my vocals.” But in a weird way, it worked. And I probably wouldn’t have sounded like that if I wasn’t just recording into my laptop and singing it and just being like, “what does this button do?” (laughs).
EQD: So are you into Pro-Tools, Logic? What’s your DAW of choice?
SA: I’m a pro, man! I’m a pro, my mixes are great (laughs). They’re kind of shit still. But it doesn’t matter. I remember with [producer, DJ, Leaving Records founder] Matthewdavid, he’s the person I worked with for the first two EPs. He was working at Stones Throw at the time and A&R-ing. He was like”This is just your sound. It’s a D.I.Y. mixing sound. It’s a thing. You shouldn't’ feel weird. It sounds good.” But I’m really serious about learning the science and the math behind everything. I always had a natural appreciation for music, but now since I feel like I did a lot of D.I.Y.-ing and YouTube-ing, I really just want to learn the math behind what I do.
EQD: Yeah, got to learn to navigate those EQ frequencies, huh?
SA: That’s one thing I’m trying to learn. That might be the first thing you need to learn, there’s frequency for every sound. And, if you know how to cut certain frequencies and levels, certain volumes and sounds and panning, then you can get a decent sounding mix.
EQD: You’re self-taught. Have done any violin study at all?
SA: I did during COVID, with Karen Briggs. She’s this very legendary jazz violinist and she did a lot of stuff on WuTang and classical jazz, notable things, and stuff and I really like the way she plays the violin and I really look up to her. I did some lessons with her and that was fun. She was so cool, she was like “You are doing it all right. You have appeal and fuck what everybody else thinks.” There are a lot of habits that I have, and maybe you’re supposed to hold the violin a certain way, but she was telling me that you shouldn’t change, that you have a good tone and that’s all that matters.
EQD: Your pizzicato work is a big part of the rhythm of your sound.
SA: It is. She kind of taught me a new technique to make a stronger pizzicato without holding it like a guitar, because that’s usually how I play it. But there’s a way you can hold it up on your shoulder and get a crazy loud noise too. So she taught me how to do some stuff like that. I’m so into pizzicatos!
EQD: You also seem to be a big lover of harmony.
SA: It’s probably from church because we did a lot of harmonies in church. And, I love listening to violin music and they do a lot of Celtic fiddle style music and they have cool harmonies. I’m obsessed with harmonies. When I was younger my sister used to call me Harmony (laughs) because I was always trying to add a harmony to something.
EQD: So, what’s next?
SA: I’m just trying to make as many songs as possible. Because I feel like when things weren’t all COVID, it always seemed like, “Oh, you gotta go here, you gotta go there.” I like traveling, but I don’t know that I like touring all the time. To be honest, I’d like to do a show every six months or maybe every year, but like a big show, like some I’m-twirling-in-the-air type shit, you know (laughs)? But touring all the time it can get draining. I’d rather be at home in the basement. So I guess what’s next is, trying to figure out a way to do that.
EQD: Sho’ nuff. We love to hear how our stuff is being used.
SA: You guys are from Ohio, OK? Ohio against the world! Hometown, you know what I’m saying. You gotta represent. I definitely wouldn’t be the artist I am if I wasn’t from Ohio.
EQD: Oh yeah, how so?
SA: Because I was literally stranded in the middle of nowhere and I had nothing to do (laughs) and that’s what created this weird person who just likes to collect instruments.
EQD: You found the violin around 4th grade, right?
SA: Oh yeah! I probably wouldn’t be playing violin if I wasn’t from Ohio, because I was living in this weird little town called Wyoming and they had a really good string program, and they came and started playing this Irish jig music and I was like, “Bruh, I need to fucking play that shit.” And ever since then I’ve just been obsessed with the violin.
EQD: Did you catch any guff from the cool kids or anyone else in Wyoming, Ohio?
SA: They respected me man, they were like, [affects southern Ohio accent] “Yeah, c’mon girl! Let’s play some jigs!” But, I did get made fun of some times in high school. They’d be like, “Ooh, are you going to fiddle class? Ha!” (laughs).
Malcolm X Abram is a recovering reporter and music writer and a proud 40 year guitar noodler. He lives, works and plays in the bucolic dreamland of Akron, Ohio in an old house with two dogs who don’t really like each other and way too many spiders.
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