A Day with Sudan Archives

US Talking studio, instruments and creativity with Ableton 07/09/26

Sudan Archives is an American violinist, singer, and songwriter who learned to play the violin by ear as a young child. She incorporates it in her work now, and this video with Ableton shares the creative process of using the instrument as a bass, and explores how she builds a track around it. She has a collection of around six traditional instruments, including the goje, a West African fiddle that has become her go-to - along with electronic beats on the Ableton Move. Here's more from the blog, which you can read in full here.

Ask Brittney Parks where dance music begins, and she won't start with electronic music, she'll start with fiddle culture.

The Cincinnati-born violinist, singer and songwriter – better known as Sudan Archives – has built her career by challenging assumptions about the violin; combining traditional string techniques with dance, R&B and experimental pop.

Her distinctive sound isn't something she describes as consciously planned. "I think it just happens that way," she says. "Like you don't think about how you're gonna have sex. You just have sex."

For Parks, the comparison is part of a broader point: making music belongs with these fundamentally human activities. "That's our natural state," she says. "Dancing, having sex, making our own food. That's what we're supposed to be doing. But now the natural thing is being a rat in a maze working some specific job so you can do the things you want to do when you have time. Except you're never going to have time, because you're always working to pay the rent."

Our new short film follows Parks in her studio, where she gives a tour of the instruments, production techniques and creative workflows behind her music, including how she uses Move and Ableton Live in her writing process.