Arlo Parks: 'I got out of my head and into my body'

Mercury Prize-winning artist Arlo Parks has embarked on a transformative musical journey with her third album, Ambiguous Desire, marking a significant evolution from her introspective origins to the pulsating world of club culture. The album represents both a sonic departure and a personal awakening for the 25-year-old singer-songwriter.

The catalyst for this artistic shift emerged from an unexpected encounter in a New York nightclub. Parks found herself consoling a distressed stranger surrounded by supportive friends, navigating the complex terrain of romantic drama. "We were sort of figuring it out together and, by the end, everyone was like, 'Yeah, you're better off without him,'" Parks recalls. The evening culminated with the group celebrating on the dance floor—a moment that perfectly encapsulates the communal healing power that inspired her latest work.

Ambiguous Desire diverges dramatically from the tender, contemplative ballads that defined her Mercury Prize-winning debut Collapsed In Sunbeams and its 2023 successor My Soft Machine. This latest offering pulses with nighttime energy, embracing the raw physicality of dance culture while maintaining Parks' signature emotional depth.

The transformation reflects significant changes in Parks' personal life. Born Anais Marinho, she secured a record deal while still in school, releasing her first album shortly after her twentieth birthday. The subsequent years were consumed by touring, including high-profile support slots with Harry Styles and Billie Eilish. After concluding her 2023 Soft Machine tour, Parks made a deliberate decision to reclaim experiences she had missed during her rapid ascent to fame.

"I knew that I wanted to take time to pause and live my life," Parks explains. "I ended up spending a lot more time dancing and getting out of my head and more into my body."

This immersion in nightclub culture revealed what Parks describes as a "hyperreality"—a space where vulnerability and authenticity flourish under strobe lights. "Everyone's guard is down, and everyone's equally vulnerable. There's all these little snippets of conversation and fleeting, really intense, connections," she observes.

These experiences provided rich source material for her new compositions. Drawing on her background as a poet, Parks crafts vivid musical vignettes that capture the essence of these nocturnal encounters. The glitchy club track "Heaven" transports listeners to a Kelly Lee Owens performance beneath Los Angeles' 6th Street Viaduct, where "bodies in the summer breeze" navigate concrete and gasoline fumes. A simple detail—pink Adidas shoes glimpsed through the crowd—anchors the narrative in authentic specificity.

"Get Go" pays homage to London through pirate radio samples and crisp two-step rhythms, exploring the therapeutic power of dancing with strangers. The track was inspired by supporting a friend through a breakup: "I was like, 'Let's just go dancing. Let's be flooded with loud music, and you can cry, and we can just release this.'"

Meanwhile, "Blue Disco" captures the intimate chaos of afterparties at Parks' home, complete with the sensory details of post-celebration recovery. These gatherings reflect her newfound role as host, where she combines her passion for cooking with DJ sets for friends. "I was like, 'I want to get good at this', because when you're coming down, you need to eat," she notes with characteristic warmth.

Parks rigorously prepared for this artistic evolution, approaching the genre shift with scholarly dedication. She studied club culture through literature, examined the architecture of communal spaces, and absorbed legendary DJ sets from New York's Paradise Garage. This research foundation supports musical references spanning LCD Soundsystem, Burial, Jamie xx, and Goldie, while maintaining the authentic voice that defined her earlier work.

"My music has always been a collage," Parks explains. "I just take what intrigues me from different genres and different moods and apply them to the stories I want to tell."

The album's most vulnerable track, "Beams," demonstrates how Parks adapts dance music structures to explore emotional complexity. Using repetitive loops to mirror obsessive thoughts about ending a relationship, she creates sonic representations of internal turmoil. "I wanted the repetition to mirror those cyclical thoughts - a spiral or a fixation on one specific feeling," she explains.

This approach extends to capturing moments of joy, where repetition serves to preserve ephemeral happiness. Parks has developed a more mature relationship with transience, accepting that fleeting moments possess their own beauty rather than lamenting their inevitable conclusion.

Ambiguous Desire successfully bridges Parks' contemplative origins with her newfound appreciation for collective movement and shared experience. The album stands as both a personal milestone and an artistic achievement, demonstrating how embracing new experiences can revitalize creative expression while maintaining authentic artistic identity.