Multi-faceted vocalist/songwriter/musician/performer/producer and restlessly creative femme fatale Sylvia Black has announced her new album, Twilight Animals (Originals and Covers for Tortured Lovers), which will be released on October 18. Today, she has released the video for the first single from the album "Walking With Fire" featuring Lydia Lunch via Brooklyn Vegan.
Watch the video for "Walking With Fire" below!
Sylvia Black's 'Twilight Animals' (Originals and Covers for Tortured Lovers) sums up many of her musical loves in 12 songs. Twilight Animals gleefully style hops from electronic to jazz-noir, sonic jaunts to the East by way of Morocco and India, and always some hometown Texas blues and twang, Sylvia manages to create haunting and authentic music from a wide spectrum of styles most probably due to her tumultuous and gypsy-like upbringing. Never one to sit still, it is no wonder Sylvia Black and Lydia Lunch have found a kinship, friendship, and have collaborated not only on 'Twilight Animals' but have yet another album, featuring much more of the No-Wave pioneer's presence, waiting in the wings.
The first half of the 'Twilight Animals' pulls you into the shadows of a low lit lounge. As the smoke dissipates you find yourself in a mysterious scene from a David Lynch film where an amalgamation of Koko Taylor's 'Up In Flames' plays against a Blue Velvet backdrop while a tortured Isabella Rossellini opens to an audience of Lynch's most seductive and dark characters. You are handed an unfamiliar cocktail that begins to bubble and effervesce. And just as you hit peak hallucination with a bit of paranoia, the 2nd half of the album then pulls you out through that back door to the other side relieving you onto a foreign tropical shore where campy John Water's characters swing and play as the sun fades away.
On 'Twilight Animals', Sylvia crafts energetic and haunting originals but also bows deeply to some of her favorite artists by covering some of her favorite songs from cult faves, Fat White Family, The Horrors, and Psychedelic Furs to surprising renditions by 80's musical monsters Van Halen and Huey Lewis and the News...twisting the originals to her will and making them into something very different from where they started - the only way Sylvia considers doing a cover.
Sylvia Black is vocalist with styles ranging from jazz to country to gospel to opera. A US Patent owner, bassist, video editor, and video director/motion graphics artist hobbiest.
Multi-faceted vocalist/songwriter/musician/performer/producer and restlessly creative femme fatale SYLVIA BLACK is hard to pin down. You may have last heard Sylvia's rendition of the classic, 'I Put A Spell On You' for Netflix hit series 'Chilling Adventures of Sabrina' on their premiere episode. Or, you may have last seen her singing and cutting up in the lounge of the Roxy Hotel in New York City during her much loved Friday night residency. But from the beginning, born bi-racial in Alabama, Sylvia turned her observations and experiences of riding the line between worlds, and feeling at times very outside of both, into a well of emotions from which to draw upon for character work and soon took to the stage. By age 5, acting was her passion. But even eventually landing in the epicenter of film and tv land as a child, Los Angeles, Sylvia found many limitations imposed upon her because of her 'type' at that time. Her focus stayed mostly in the theater but music was always the vehicle. Sylvia's first job took her to Japan at age 17 to sing in a resort hotel for 3 months and music has been with her ever since. A background and passion for punk, jazz, new-wave, and metal during her formidable years led her in many directions. Intensity and quality being the only framework.
She may be once best known as the voice of New York's fiery electronic pop-rock trio KUDU, along with partners Deantoni Parks ( Mars Volta, John Cale, Flying Lotus, Me-Shell N'Degeocello) and Nicci Kasper. Lauded by The NY Times and many other notable publications, KUDU were poised for success based on a fiercely current sound Sylvia curated to pay homage to the true New Yorkers she had longed to be around since she was stuck in Jr. High School dreaming in Texas. Fresh from her school days in Boston, where Sylvia received her degree, with honors, in Bass Performance, from the hands of David Bowie and Wayne Shorter, Sylvia made a bee line for New York City. Sylvia had brief bass playing stints with the likes of N'Dea Davenport (Brand New Heavies), Kamaal The Abtract ( Q Tip ), and Muzz Skillings (Living Color) before she put aside her bass for a considerable time. She has also recorded and/or has written for acts such as MOBY, DAPHNE GUINNESS, France's TELEPOPMUSIK, THE KNOCKS, BLACK EYED PEAS (as co-writer on 'B.O.Y.' and 'Meet Me Halfway', the 3rd Top 10 single from the group's Grammy winning, multiplatinum album THE E.N.D. , which went #1 in 12 countries). Sylvia has written the winning hits for Germany's The Voice as well as German Idol with 'Do You Like What You See' and 'The One' written for 2014/2015 winners Ivy Quainoo and Aneta Sablik. Sylvia has an impressive knack for writing engaging rhyme schemes and poetic lyrics but find interest in mostly underground, unsung musical heroes.
