Sudan Archives has been busy on the road since she released her 2022 album, Natural Brown Prom Queen, but things have otherwise been quiet—until now. The singer-songwriter, violinist, and multi-instrumentalist returns with “Dead,” her first new music in nearly three years, as well as an accompanying music video directed by Jonah Haber. In the visual, Sudan Archives sings to a tropical fish in a tank, dances between flashing lamps, and is approached by a robotic arm. Watch it below.
Recorded across Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit, “Dead” was written as an exploration of orchestral Black dance music and the parts of ourselves that are more human than machine, and vice versa. The video further extrapolates on those themes.
After her most recent album came out, Sudan Archives made the rounds on late-night television shows to perform tracks from it on air. For instance, she did “Selfish Soul” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and “Homesick (Gorgeous & Arrogant)” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Revisit the 2022 interview “How Sudan Archives Exploded Her Sound to Make One of the Year’s Best Albums.”
