Sylvia Black at Berlin

Lydia Lunch (left) sang one song with Sylvia Black (right)

Born in Alabama, Sylvia Black lived in California, Texas, and Massachusetts before settling in New York City. Although she initially aspired to be an actor, music became her calling. At age 17, her first singing job was a three-month residency at a resort hotel in Japan. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, under the name Sylvia Gordon, she sang and played bass in Kudu, a New York City- based electronic pop-rock trio that blended jazz, soul, and electronica. Several collaborations later, Black moved into session work and songwriting for television programs in the United States and Germany. Her better-known work includes co-writing the Black Eyed Peas' "Meet Me Halfway" and the winning songs in Germany's The Voice and German Idol. More recently, as Betty Black, she held a Friday night residency at New York's Roxy Hotel. In 2018, her rendition of "I Put a Spell on You" was featured in the premiere episode of television's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The first album under the name Sylvia Black, Twilight Animals (Originals and Covers for Tortured Lovers), was released today, October 18, 2019.

Sylvia Black performed tonight at Berlin, accompanied by guitarist Ruddy Lee Cullers, vibraphone/synthesizer player Yusuke Yamamoto, and drummer Parker Kindred. No-wave and spoken word artist Lydia Lunch, who appears on Black's new album, introduced Black at the start of the performance and the two sang the opening song as a duet. The approximately 30-minute set was too short to adequately showcase the width of Black's repertoire, but she demonstrated that she can sing, play bass and reinterpret a cover song with curious twists and curves. The songs were mostly rooted in electro-soul and jazz-noir, but there were evident links to rock and punk. Black concluded the set with a cover of Fat White Family's "Touch the Leather," giving the song a sultry gloss. Black's concert pointed to a bridge that connected experimental music to mainstream indie.