Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
exerpts from 1/4 page:
"Kudu, a trio from New York, beats the odds. East Village as anything, it makes properly glamorous funky aduls=t squaler, and clomping denuded beats and still manages to be musical."
"It's simple, smart music with rhythm and an outsize visual image, the kind of band you'd hire for a fashion magazine's launch party." - Ben Ratliff
excerpt:
Kudu's music incorporates a diverse mix of genres, perhaps as varied as the origins of the word itself: the African Kudu is an antelope who's long horns are prized for their use as musical instruments; Kudu Records was launched in 1971 in the U.S. with the mission of bringing the groove back into jazz-in it's brief history the label released several classic......in Sri Lanka, Kudu is the Singhalese word for herione...
...Sylvia's vocals posess the raw power and emotion reminiscent of the classic punk rockers Siouxsie Sioux and Poly Styrene, coupled by a melodic range that easily matches the best of today's jazz singers....
"Kudu fits in with a lot of people. that's how I grew up", recalled singer/songwriter Sylvia G. before her recent performance at the AfroPunk tribute to Bad Brains at the Delancey on Manhattan's Lower East Side..... - -Alex Barnes
excerpt:
To celebrate the club's 3rd anniversary, and to announce the launch of the Nublu record label, the people at nublu are having a week long festival. The absolute must-see show is on Tuesday when Brazilian Girls and Kudu play live....
.... Kudu are raw, powerful, and darkly melodic- last-party-before-you-die music.
Horroe rave synth lines. Far gone diva singer. Manic drums. The room drenched in reverb. - -Dominic LaRuffa
excerpt:
Kudu are Sylvia on vocals, D. on drums and computers, and Nick on synths. Sylvia is a first-rate jazz singer, but in Kudu she is more club-kid-gone-bad than diva. She has feline wit in spades and sings like a hijacked police siren in whirling howls about desire, the body, confusion, blood. She is sexuality unhinged.
Kudu's basslines' bump like electro, and the keyboards produce an immersion effect when heard live reminiscent of the wet, hazy sound of the early 80's post-punk psychedelia. But any apprehension that Kudu are retreads of that era is cancelled by D.'s mastery of the drum. He has so internalized the digital breakbeats of jungle music that he sets down snake-writhe rythms with his bare hands. He also knows how to rock straight ahead, electro style. It is his demonic drumming that makes Kudu modern.
Despite Sylvia's jazz background and the group's residency at Nublu- incubator of Norah Jones- Kudu are not about jazz sophistication. Kudu go straight down the center directly to the core. Their music is psychedelic pop- catchy and concise, stripped down and raw.... - Dominic LaRuffa
interview excerpt: "Sugar Misses"
"I was born in Alabama, but about every couple of years my family would move..."
"I always felt that people should do what is most natural for them and if that means subscribing to only one style or sound, then that is beautiful, but for me and many more people, we are influenced from an early age by so many different things that it becomes a collage..." - Melanie Scherenzel
excerpt:
Could these be the smae electro-vixens who dropped, "I've Been Hit" in '01 and then dropped off the face of BerWilliamsburg?
My God they're back and rocking shit harder than ever! And for more of the Gary Neuman dance floor vibe flip the 'Black Blonde mix'
Hottt! - Toph One
Kudu are just great--the gig totally lived up to Dominic's hype. Imagine ESG meets the Banshees of "Peek-A-Boo". The singer looks like Cory Daye but her voice is like Siouxsie with serious diva technique; like if Sioux had decided-- after "Cocoon," the "jazzy" number on Kiss In the Dreamhouse, and "Right Now", the showbizzy, razzmatazzy Creatures tune--that she really wanted to be a nightclub singer. The result: tropicalized Goth, a weird meld of torrid and frigid, alluring and domineering. There'll be an album later this year on the new Nublu label. - Simon Reynolds
Exerpt:
L.E.S. Mainstays Usher In the Era of Tropical Goth
...It's a gift and a curse. break boundaries, navigate diverse styles creatively, and no one knows what to call you. Such has been the plight of kudu the NYC based trio centered around drummer D. parks and vocalist Sylvia Gordon (but also including keyboardist Nick Kasper). They've drawn everyone from John Cale to Beans to Vincent Gallo to their homebase at Nublu, the remotely located East Village, eclectic, music outpost where they've held a long running residency. While those who've caught kudu's hypnotic sets form Baltimore to Turkey are often instantly hooked, no one seems able to describe them to their friends.... - Feature by: Jesse Serwer
Exerpt:
New York Survival Guide:
'Kudu at Nublu on a Tuesdu'
"A hot midsummer Tuesday night, I was running down a cab to Nublu for the first time, thinking it would be just another typical hipster nightly activity that i am already getting over witnessing in the Lower East Side. but, to my pleasant surprise this venue was a little more than i had expected. Stepping up the small stoop on the dodgy part of Avenue C I open up an unmarked door to reveal a variety of creatives such as musicians, writers, photographers and artists laying in the cut.....
.....Kudu runs their set iwth an intense confidence and maturity that is as well suited for the main stage at coachella as it is for my new friendly comrades in this wee 700sq. ft. venue. A kudu performance sets the watermark for other electronic acts trying to mke their way form an i Pod to the live stage. Sylvia's full flavor singing reminds me of Siouxsie of the banshees and a hint of PJ Harvey, with Peaches sprinkled around the edges. She draws you in with her voice and rhythmic motions, making you oblivious to everything else around you. Everyhting, that is, except the avid drumming. Deantoni's mix of live drumming and sequenced beats is the shiny ribbon wrapped around this generous musical gift..... - Feature by: Joshua Lynn
KUDU: PHYSICAL WORLD
(Produced by Kudu)
Agghh!!!!! The greatest record we’ve heard this month. Bar none. One of those records where you just stop to listen and then it’s over and you’re still wondering what happened. Deantoni “D” Parks (John Cale, Lauryn Hill, DJ Logic) and Sylvia Gordon do this whole synth, wet keyboard, crazy drum thing that makes you think of MIA, ESG, and a bunch of other letters that spell out that we’re presently tracking them down to make them explain the voodoo that they do - Jason Lally
Discography
Kudu (The Red Album)
Kudu the EP
Kudu (Boom Boom ep)
Coming in september!! "Death of the Party"
Singles floating around are: I've Been Hit, Boom Boom, 10 Fingertips, Playing House, Cannibal, Boom Boom (Black Blonde remix)
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
For God's sake GO TO----->
http://www.myspace.com/KUDU
"Not since Adult. in the late 1990s has the U.S. underground dance scene produced an act with true pop appeal, and not since Deee-Lite in the late 1980s has the New York scene. Underground dance, post-1996 jungle, has been for the most part a subculture in decline, its products novel and pleasing only to cognoscenti. Kudu are poised to join the short list of singular exceptions. --Sleeping n the Floor, Blogspot.com
"Co-mingling the spirits of Missing Persons, Chaka Kahn, the White Stripes, and Tony Williams- Kudu makes music you want to hear over and over again."---Amaechi Uzoigwe (Pres. Definitive Jux Records/ World's Fair)
Kudu connects the rawness and the realness that has bubbled up from the underground and makes way to a wider more varied representation of today's youthful audience. Nomadic as they are, Kudu has no base but the U.S., but can be found mostly in NY, Atlanta, or L.A. Kudu is the brand new dynamic duo of Deantoni Parks and Sylvia G. who bring you a step further from electro by combining the essence of old school New Wave, song form, and modern beats and breaks. A real DIY group who write and produce everything they put out...even their own remixes. Kudu's sound can be summed up as Urban new Wave or simply, Nu-Pop. Aside from the fresh musical ingredients - without one sour spot concerning image, talent, concept, lyric, or songwriting, - it's about that energy, the excitement of being apart of something familiar but altogether new. Kudu appeals across the board beyond race, class,nationality, and age. Kudu has packed out all black Atlanta audiences to all white audiences in Boston. Just watch out when they are heard overseas! The formula for Kudu seems to be to take what's hot, push it forward, and retain all the dark, beautiful, artistic simplicity.
"Why Kudu isn't signed is still a mystery...Kudos to Kudu. Since that 80's revival has come around they should be more popular than Nena's 99 Luft Balloons. Preach!"---Kronick Magazine
The characters in Kudu as a duo are a force, but individually stand on their own feet as major talents as well. Their fate was sealed when they met in music school and they've been the closest of friends and partners in crime and music ever since. The juxtaposition of these personality opposites seems to be the engine that keep them running smoothly. They contribute from different tastes and backgrounds to compliment one another and produce a new musical color. Together or seperately D. and Sylvia have performed and/or wrote with and /or recorded with John Cale (founder Velvet Underground), Mars Volta, Q-Tip (Kamaal the Abstract), Amel Larrieux (Groove Theory), N'Dea Davenport (Brand New Heavies), Vernon Reid (Living Color), Chris Brann (P'taah and Ananda, Wamdue Kids), Lauryn Hill, Me'Shell N'degeocello, and more.
âSylviaâs vocals posess the raw power and emotion reminiscent of the classic punk rockers Siouxsie Sioux and Poly Styrene, coupled by a melodic range that easily matches the best of todayâs jazz singers.â?âAlex Barnes, Trace magazine
"Sylvia's voice--A supple coil of smooth velvet."--Time Out New York
Sylvia is the visually minded, vocalist, songwriter, lyricist, and co-producer of Kudu but is also an accomplished bassist. Studying for four years at music school she walked away with her degree and the bass dept.'s Chair award given to only two out of hundreds of national and international, overwhelmingly male students that year. Her uncanny ability for rhyme scheme and poetry make her lyrics accessible and visual. Sylvia is a library for and fan of musical culture and art and is respected as a musician and artist in many areas.
An example of her range is the fact that she is a working jingle singer, has recorded alongside jazz giants Mulgrew Miller and Lewis Nash on a composition entitled "Kaleidescope" to which she contributed the lyric for Jeremy Pelt's latest album on MaxJazz records--as well as the dance tracks "Staring at the Sun" and "Rain Down"--Ubiquity Records--that she wrote, played bass, and sang for which charted at #1 on CMJ's RPM-811 chart in April '03. But make no mistake, Sylvia is no musical stiff. She considers music the vehicle for art and personal expression. Alongside her beauty and grace is the bite and growl in Sylvia's voice and presence that is likened to dancing the line between Betty Carter, Betty Page, and Siouxsie Sioux. Sylvia's bi-continental, bi-coastal, nomadic upbringing led her across lines of class, race, and cultures giving her the capability to connect with a spectrum of people on a very genuine level. Sylvia is a young lady of bold proportions, girlish curiosity, and womanly strength and emotion with a voice and intellect that charms and seduces undeniably.
"This format allows parks to unleash spanking clean chops, often at speeds that rival the busiest Drum&Bass program"---'Buzz--editor's picks' Drum m
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