She walked on stage with her electronic violin in hand and just began. It started with some plucks of the strings, clapping on the violin body, rustling, everything adding up to one big loop. Finally she began playing and singing, all adding up to a big crescendo. It was mesmerising.

Sudan Archives stood there in a short black leather jumpsuit, with winged sleeves and one half looking like a blazer. Her hair was in long corn rows, her feet in black plateau boots. Like that, her skin just glowed in the dimmed orange light in the otherwise dark concert hall of BIRD.

From there on she just went through her repertoire of songs, playing them as she felt them in that moment. It seemed at one point like she had some trouble with her looper but she just played through it. It all had some dreamlike, spherical vibe to it. I loved that not many people talked during the concert. They were all captivated by the performance.

Unfortunately I got to say that I was a bit disappointed by the music/voice volume ratio. The softer parts of her lyrics got a bit buried by the loop sounds around it. But recently I was told that that is a problem that occurs more often at BIRD. I guess I will see next time I go there. Apart from that I actually really loved the location.

I personally was a bit surprised by her whole performance. She seemed very distant there on her stage. There was no actual interaction with the crowd. At one point she left the stage and came back after a few minutes. And before „Come Meh Way“ she just said „just one more song“ and afterwards she walked off. To me it seemed like she was in her little music bubble and didn’t really seem to recognise the world around her. Or maybe she was also a bit nervous, who knows.

After the concert I started talking to two ladies at the coat check. One of them agreed with me, but the other made a comment I wanted to share with you. She said that she was so impressed by Sudan Archives in that awesome cat-woman outfit with her incredible long hair, that she absolutely did not see it bothersome that she just parted without a word.

There you can see that impressions are such an subjective thing. You just got to let them all sink in without prejudice. I kind of expected her with her afro and in earth coloured clothes, sending out natural vibes, and that is what clouded my experience of her performance. So from now I am going to try to not put expectations on future performances and just enjoy their way of bringing their music to us.