Los Angeles-based multifaceted producer, singer/songwriter, bassist, performer, restless performer and JOVM mainstay Sylvia Black has had a long-held reputation for being difficult to pin down. Since her first job singing and entertaining at a resort hotel in Northern Japan as teen, music has been her lifeline.
Throughout her career, Black has steadily gained momentum as a writer and producer, consistently creating music on her own terms, simultaneously cementing her place in the post-punk and goth-romantic renaissance, while being restlessly creative. Her lengthy credits reflect her eclectic tastes and wide-ranging abilities. She was the frontperson of the New York-based trio KUDU with Deantoni Parks (drums, production) and Nicci Kasper (keys, production) in the early 00s. Black also has writing and recording credits with Grammy Award-winning pop act Black Eyed Peas, Daphne Guinness and more. Her lengthy and impressive resume includes collaborations with legends like Tony Visconti, Lydia Lunch and Moby, as well as The Knocks, Armand Van Helden and French electro pop duo Telepopmusik. And last, but definitely not lease, her sultry rendition of ‘I Put A Spell On You” appeared on the hit Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
As a bassist, Black has played with The Brand New Heavies‘ N’Dea Davenport, Living Colour‘s Muzz Skillings and with Maya Rudolph’s Prince cover band Princess.
The JOVM mainstay’s long-awaited new album, the 11-song Shadowtime is slated for a January 16, 2026 release. The album rsees Black continuing her long-held approach of songwriting from the bottom up. “I find a beat that I’m in love with and go forward,” Black says. “The bass provides the floor, but as a singer, I’m also coming in with the roof. If you can write a beautiful song with just those two elements, bass notes and the voice, that’s a job well done.”
Written, produced and performed primarily by the JOVM mainstay, the album was crafted with support from longtime mix engineer and creative foil Ruddy Lee Cullers. The album’s material will reportedly be a haunting exploration of nostalgia and futurism, that sees Black pushing her sound in new directions by weaving hypnotic rhythms, cinematic layers and raw, visceral emotion, while moving effortlessly from dance floor anthems to atmospheric meditations on love, loss and transcendence. “This album is about finding beauty in ruins,” Black says. “About letting the shadows speak through me. Returning to California brought out the memory and soul of my goth days gone by.”
Shadowtime will feature the previously released “Talking in Tongues,” a brooding blend of goth, New Wave and shoegaze that seemed to nod at Suicide, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and others, while being the perfect, atmospheric bed for Black’s sultry delivery. The album will also feature, its second and latest single, “Long Gone Gardens.”
Anchored around a forceful and commanding bass line and bursts of shimmering, reverb-soaked guitars and twinkling keys, “Lone Gone Gardens” seemingly nods at Siouxsie and the Banshees — for example, think of “Hong Kong Garden,” and “Happy House” — while channeling Black’s childhood bond with the natural world, amidst the fruits and flora grown by her grandmother. But the song also subtly evokes the Biblical garden of Eden: You can almost picture Adam and Eve at the tree of knowledge, and what happens right as they eat the fruit . . .
“The track is a reflection about a choice that seemingly lets you lose everything but puts you on a new path to find salvation again in another form,” the JOVM mainstay explains.