Natural Brown Prom Queen
Brittney Parks’ *Athena* was one of the more interesting albums of 2019. *Natural Brown Prom Queen* is better. Not only does Parks—aka the LA-based singer, songwriter, and violinist Sudan Archives—sound more idiosyncratic, but she’s able to wield her idiosyncrasies with more power and purpose. It’s catchy but not exactly pop (“Home Maker”), embodied but not exactly R&B (“Ciara”), weird without ever being confrontational (“It’s Already Done”), and it rides the line between live sound and electronic manipulation like it didn’t exist. She wants to practice self-care (“Selfish Soul”), but she also just wants to “have my titties out” (“NBPQ \[Topless\]”), and over the course of 55 minutes, she makes you wonder if those aren’t at least sometimes the same thing. And the album’s sheer variety isn’t so much an expression of what Parks wants to try as the multitudes she already contains.
With daring lyricism and technical ingenuity, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Brittney Parks’ second album conjures a frenzied energy as emotionally soothing as it is physically crushing.
Sudan Archives conjures a fete of creativity and strategic maximalism with Natural Brown Prom Queen which elegantly displays her penchant for winning melodies and versatility
Natural Brown Prom Queen is without doubt the work of an introverted extrovert putting her extroversion on full display.
Brittney Parks is nothing if not a chameleon. Under the name Sudan Archives, the Cincinnati-bred, L.A.-based singer-songwriter-violinist has...
Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, producer and violinist Sudan Archives, real name Brittany Denise Parks, has returned with her long-awaited
Post-genre American musician Brittney Parks extends her range yet further on her dizzying second album
Natural Brown Prom Queen by Sudan Archives: this is an artist who clearly has so much talent, but whose new album doesn't quite work
Natural Brown Prom Queen by Sudan Archives album review by Greg Walker. The singer/songwriter's LP is now out via Stones Throw and DSPs
In new music this week, there’s everything from heavy-metal luminaries to new stars drawing on Sudanese and Zambian traditions