words by Patty Riek
photos by Jon Bauer
Playing to an adoring, sold out Regency crowd, Sudan Archives offered up a rollicking set on a cold and rainy Wednesday night.
While the violin is her primary instrument, performance art is a much more accurate description for the layers Brittney Parks presents in a show. This is not your grandparents violin concert. Clever lighting (including a light bar), mood fog, layered vocals, spirited violin, rhythmic drums, and varied beats, all contribute to the evocative storytelling of the evening. Sometimes wielding her bow like a wand and drum sticks like airplane guide sticks, Parks engaged with the crowd to harness their screams, claps and voracious energy to integrate them as part of the show.
Working through old faves such as “Freakalizer,” Parks also promised to “play some new shit” from her new album The BPM including “Ms. Pac Man” and “Heaven Knows,” with “The Nature Of Power,” and “The BPM” as the nights’ two encores.
At one point, Parks had an audience member dance on the elevated platform that ended in a sexy twosome dance duet. Seeing someone else on stage with Parks was a bit jarring as her signature solo performance is so high energy, she fills the entire stage with her spitfire spirit.
Parks’ facility to create soundscapes– alternating between drums and a staccato plink of a key, sci-fi electronica, almost traditional fiddling and experimental violin, vocal variations – coupled with her dancing and storytelling made for a hypnotic night.
Cydnee with a C was the perfect start. Like Sudan Archives, Cydnee offered a genre bending set – part hip-hop, part K-pop, part electronica, all boisterous fun! Personal lyrics resonated with the audience coupled with a domininatrix style dancer with a fiber optic whip, lighted hula hoops, inflatable tube man for maximum spectacle. The Korean word of the day (Happy Birthday) added to the festive ambiance.
