Pretty sure until I started the research for this post I’d never heard of anyone self-teaching themselves how to play the violin. But that’s exactly what Brittney Denise Parks did after seeing a group of fiddlers in 4th grade. After that fateful day, she asked her mom for a violin and was finally given one a year or two later.

Parks, whose stage name is Sudan Archives¹, took her love of the violin from her home town of Cincinnati to Los Angeles when she was kicked out of her house after high school. Newly relocated, she started writing her own music while immersing herself in the legendary experimental hip hop and electronic music club night Low End Theory at The Airliner in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of LA. She also started attending ethnomusicology classes at Pasadena City College, where she dove deep into the global cultural origins of stringed instruments (as one does).

Thanks to her ties at Low End Theory, she got a connection at Stones Throw Records, with whom she’s released two Sudan Archives EPs and three full-length albums. I’d heard the name Sudan Archives for years, but had never given her much consideration until a coworker (hi Maureen!) told me they were having trouble putting THE BPM down. Give it a listen, and it’s easy to hear why.

Hit play on the video above, for the song “DEAD.” Parks has taken her violin skills, the ethnomusicology education, and Low End Theory experience and combined it into what my Gen X music-loving mind wants to call “techno music.” If you listen closely, you’ll hear evidence of a violin scattered throughout the album, but at its core, this is dance music, primed to make you want to move. She’s released a few videos from the album, all generally built around the premise of Parks mugging for the camera, barely clothed. Watch “A BUG’S LIFE,” “MS. PAC MAN,” and “MY TYPE” — MS. PAC MAN is the most abrasive song on the album, with lyrics like “Put it in my mouth, then my bank account. Fuck you on the couch in my favorite blouse,” but it’s still great. You’d be hard pressed to not shake your booty to this album.

I’ve not yet listened, but from what I’ve read, the past Sudan Archives albums are every bit as good as this one. We all now have our marching orders. Let’s get out and listen, please report back your findings.

^{1. “My mom nicknamed me ‘Sudan,’ and that country happens to have a lot of violin music, which I thought was really cool. ‘Archives’ refers to the musicologist archives that I always try to find, but it also means if you wanna be yourself, you gotta dig deep.” – “Sudan Archives: She’s Different” article in Pitchfork, August 17, 2017↩}

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Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists

In 2022, KEXP — the radio station that broadcasts at 90.3 on the FM dial in the Seattle area and worldwide at kexp.org — turned 50. The station has recorded countless “Live at KEXP” sessions that they then post on their YouTube channel. From those sessions, they’ve produced ten “Live at KEXP” collections over the years. These are wildly varying mixes that lovingly reflect the eclectic nature of the station and all its DJs loves and influences. And that finally brings us to why we’re here: Live at KEXP, vol. 10, my #28 album of the year.

First, a bit about the history of this much-loved radio station: it started as “KCMU” when four UW students in 1972 wanted an outlet and learning environment for journalism and on-air music to students beyond what had been previously available via KUOW, the original UW station (which had been severely reduced due to university budget cuts in the early 70s). It has been through a variety of changes over the last five decades: shifting from KCMU to KEXP thanks to an agreement with Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project in the early 2000s; a formalization of format from a mix of news and DJ-led music to only music in the 90s; and a successful transformation from solvency being provided by university or investor backing to being fully listener supported.

The mission of the station has never wavered: “to enrich [listeners’ lives] by championing music and discovery. [The station’s] vision is a connected and compassionate world embracing curiosity and a shared love of music.” They mean it when they say “KEXP: Where the music matters.” While I can’t pinpoint the connection exactly, it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t have the love of music that I do without KEXP in my life. And KEXP has truly been “in my life”:

While my wife and I were in the hospital for the birth of our daughter, we made a request to the station during a quiet moment in the delivery room that was played on air by John in the Morning, along with a sharing of our story, and heard live on our personal speaker in the room
It is KEXP I think of when I think back to my personal experience around 9/11 – with my alarm going off early in the morning to the sounds of KCMU in 2001, John’s telling of the first plane hitting the Towers is as clear in my head now as it was that morning
At the start of the pandemic, the station adapted quickly to the new rules of society, figuring out how to broadcast from DJ’s homes, and the station’s secondary motto “You are not alone” became a powerful mantra to listeners worldwide, including me and my family. The support the station provided then continues today as the station digs deeper into the support that the station brings to our lives through the music and stories they share.

Having been a Gold Club member multiple times over the years, and privy to the secret stage shows the station held in the tiny Children’s Theater at the Seattle Center during Bumbershoot, I’ve been witness to many intimate and monumental musical performances thanks to the station. It’s those types of performances that fill out the Live at KEXP releases, and Volume 10 is no exception. There’s “En La Front” from a 2022 performance by Argentinian singer/songwriter Barbi Recanati next to “Lump” from a 1995 performance by The Presidents of the United States of America, a 1997 Modest Mouse performance of “Dramamine” (that will simply bring you to tears due to the recent untimely passing of MM drummer Jeremiah Green due to cancer) next to “Legend Has It” from the 2017 Run the Jewels set linked in the video above. My personal favorite from the album is “Süpürgest Yoncadan” from the 2019 performance by (new to me and the Bacon Review) Turkish psych-rock band Altin Gün shown at the top of this post.

I am (we are) so lucky to have an outlet as consistently strong as KEXP to introduce me (and you) to new music from around the world that I (we) would never hear otherwise. I mentioned earlier that the station is listener supported, and consequently the album is not available to hear on the streaming services. You’ll need to go to your local (Seattle) record store to pick up the vinyl, or you can pay (minimum $10) to download the album from Bandcamp. Or of course you can just peruse the full library of performances on KEXP’s Youtube channel. All proceeds from the vinyl and from the album go directly back to the artists featured. And then when you’re done buying the album, why don’t you head over to kexp.org and throw the station a few bucks as well — without them we would not be talking here, today.

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29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#28 on the 2025 Bacon Top 31 — Sudan Archives

#28 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Various Artists via KEXP