Sudan Archives’ much-anticipated third album THE BPM drops October 17th. She has released the final pre-album teaser, the house-inspired track “A BUG’S LIFE”, which premiered on BBC Radio 1 as their “Hottest Record in the World”. THE BPM was recorded in Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit, the rich culture of Black dance music in the latter two cities inspiring Sudan Archives to create what she calls “Orchestral Black Dance Music”. “A BUG’S LIFE” is perhaps the track on THE BPM to most explicitly reference Sudan Archives’ Midwestern roots and the dance music that gives this record its edge, with its house rhythm and backing vocals. The song celebrates freedom, Sudan Archives envisioning herself “flying to the moon” and embodying another personality – chaotic, impulsive and running away without looking back.  Watch the new video below.

On THE BPM, Sudan Archives moves with style and grace through her most expressive, extroverted record yet. She has always used personas to translate her energy on each album – on Athena, she was a classical goddess; on her breakthrough album Natural Brown Prom Queen, she inhabited Britt, the Cincinnati girl with big dreams. On THE BPM she introduces Gadget Girl, a technologically advanced musician and imagines a dazzling, chrome-plated future in which we’re all tapped into our own sense of rhythm. “No one can take away your rhythm from you – no one can take away your self-will,” she explains. The ideas she explores on the record all ultimately draw back to this one idea. “All those things can be your own power if you utilize them right.”