His songs made me fall in love Billie Eilish, Florence Welch, Angel Olsen, Massive Attack and writer Zadie Smith. It tells life in a crystalline, authentic, poignant way, all accompanied by r&b and pop music that makes the blood beat. Arlo Parks, following the success of his debut album, returns with a new album that will be released on May 26th on Transgressive Records. The artist will present it live, in Italy, on September 19, 2023 at the Alcatraz in Milan.
“My Soft Machine”, this is the title of the new chapteris a deeply personal work, a narrative of Parks’ experiences. It was recorded between London and Los Angeleswith producers Paul Epworth, Ariel Rechtshaid, Romil Hemnani, Buddy Ross, collaborator of Frank Ocean, and Carter Lang (former collaborator of SZA), as well as some self-productions by Arlo herself. “The world, or rather our view of it, is shaped by the greatest things we experience: our traumas, upbringing, vulnerabilities almost like snow – says the artist – this disc is life through my lens, through my body: growth anxietythe substance abuse of friends around me, the feelings of being in love for the first time, plus navigating PTSD and grief and self-sabotage and joy. The record is also about moving through worlds with wonder and sensitivity and what it’s like to be trapped in this particular body.”
Then he continues in the story, as in a stream of consciousness: “There’s a quote in Hogg’s film called ‘The Souvenir‘, a semi-autobiographical film starring Tilda Swinton about a young film student who falls in love with a charismatic older man and becomes addicted, in which the protagonist says ‘we don’t want to see life as it unfolds, we want to see life as it is lived in this soft gear…(the body, ed)’. That’s it, the album is called ‘My Soft Machine’”.
The project will continue to the acclaimed and award-winning debut album “Collapsed in Sunbeams”. from the critics. A record that received two Grammy nominations for best album by a new female artist and for best alternative music album. Arlo won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist, received the Hyundai Mercury Prize and nabbed the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award. His debut album it also reached the top 3 in the UK and won the AIM Awards for Best Independent Album and the UK Independent Breakthrough award. In addition to all this, Arlo was also nominated for a Breakthrough International Act at the BET Awards, the youngest supporter high-profile UNICEF ambassador and UK mental health charity CALM.
The latest single released and taken from “My Soft Machine” is “Impurities”, an intense and structured piece on the sense of community: “It’s about being surrounded by people who make you feel like your inner ugliness and your failures and mistakes don’t matter, that they lift you up and make you laugh, they make you feel good and clean“. The production of this single is a collaboration between Arlo, Romil Hemnani of Brockhampton and Carter Lang (SZA) and was inspired by nights spent listening to the Beatles and SZAas well as his love of ambient and mood music. The single is accompanied by a video directed by Jak Payne, which sees Arlo immortalized in familiar surroundings, while the camera gently pans the moving image. Parks explains: “With this video I really wanted to convey this oscillation between solitude and companionship, I wanted to show how being with loved ones truly feels like coming home. While writing this song I thought a lot about Gus Van Sant and how captures people in all their fragilitybeauty and ugliness”.