Daily Dose: Sudan Archives, “Confessions”

Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.

Cincinnati-born, Los Angeles-based violinist, singer-songwriter and producer Sudan Archives has shared the video for her stellar recent single “Confessions,” in which she also debuts an excerpt of a new song titled “Black Vivaldi Sonata.” Both songs appear on the artist’s forthcoming debut full-length Athena, out Nov. 1 on Stones Throw Records.

“‘Confessions,’ a female flip on classic rap music videos—resilient women surviving in a world that seems to be falling apart & ends with its alter ego Black Vivaldi, an ode to duality,” explains Sudan Archives, aka Brittney Parks. “It’s about being the seduced and the seductress, it’s about God & the Devil, Yin & Yang, & about the possibility that we might have it all wrong about the two.” (“Also, free the fucking nipple!” she adds on Instagram in reference to the video’s minute-long, NSFW Black Vivaldi sequence.)

The duality Sudan Archives refers to is well-represented in “Confessions” itself: Parks’ violin is downtempo to the point of being mournful in the song’s opening moments, but as soon as the song’s thumping beat kicks in, her playing transforms, staccato and upbeat. “I fell down / and started / back up then seal the feeling / I’m too unique to kneel,” Parks sings, confessing to her troubles and her triumphs in the same breath—“Confessions” is nothing if not a triumph, with Sudan Archives weaving together strings and synths to serve as her platform from which to demand, “Watch me frolic through the fields, bitch.”