For the last two years, Arlo Parks was a creature of the night, finally taking the time “to live and explore”, embracing “spontaneity and playfulness”. It was an approach she’d been unable to fully commit to previously, her 2021 debut album ‘Collapsed In Sunbeams’ earning her the kind of recognition that keeps you on the road, touring the world. In the aftermath of its 2023 follow-up, ‘My Soft Machine’, though, she prioritised experiencing life – something that often led her to nocturnal spaces.
“I love Nowadays. I love Bossa. I love Basement. Those Coloring Lessons nights musclecars put on. Black Flamingo, before it was closed,” she smiles, rattling off a list of New York clubs that became her playground. After a 2024 tour stop in Brooklyn, Parks recalls falling in love with the city and “someone who lived there,” and deciding to spend more time with her “new loves”. She talks about the friends she made, the streets of Brooklyn she wandered, the euphoria she felt, and the driving emotion behind many of those nights: a propelling desire she describes as “tangled, random, enlightening, and human”.
That freedom soon inspired her to make another body of work, her imminent third album, ‘Ambiguous Desire’. “There was something bubbling,” Park tells NME with a grin over video call from London, in the weeks before its release. “I was ready. I felt excited.”
As the 25-year-old musician began work on what would become the new record, she quickly realised it felt like “making music that’s the most me”. “When I was in the studio with [my producer] Baird, it was more about experimenting and freestyling,” she says. “I start an album-making process by making things that end up fitting together. Then the puzzle reveals itself.”
Working with Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract) in his downtown loft, the first songs recorded for ‘Ambiguous Desire’ came together in “quick succession.” “[That] happened to me with my last two records as well,” she says. “There’s a period of time where three songs will come, and it feels like the backbone of something.”
This time, those three songs included album opener ‘Blue Disco’, which starts with vibrating, distorted synths, and ambling guitar parts that pick up towards the close of the song, as Parks reiterates in hushed vocals: “I always knew I would find you”. ‘Heaven’ blends a glitchy dance beat with layers of keys and strings, as she narrates a scene of “bodies in the summer breeze”, romanticising heat and the smell of gasoline, as a wall of sound builds, then falls into a visceral bass before the chorus. On ‘Senses,’ she examines the emotions surrounding a destructive relationship and the urge to dull the senses, looping the question “Is it better than nothing?” as songwriter and producer Sampha’s soulful baritone lends emphasis and deeper exploration to her inquiries.
“I enjoyed the fact that each of those songs was slightly different and gave me a different piece of information,” Parks notes. “‘Heaven’ was the slightly more risky or adventurous song where I was making edgier choices. ‘Senses’ was about being truly vulnerable more than ever before. And ‘Blue Disco’ was holding onto the storytelling and warmer sounds.”
Elsewhere on the album, ‘2sided’ depicts the tension felt before approaching an object of desire over droning synths and pulsing drum machines. There’s also the sauntering ‘South Seconds’, inspired by “wandering around” on Williamsburg’s South 2nd Street, as Parks sings in heartbroken tones, “You cut through me, and that’s not a bad thing”, splicing in a voice message from a friend.
She likens each song to a snapshot or a photograph of a specific place and time: “The way I freeze those moments is through songs, and that’s how I immortalise these things. I don’t wanna forget.” Parks’ inclination has always been to document the things she’s experienced, jotting “every single detail” down in her journal as soon as she gets home – “what I was wearing, what the sky looked like, how fast we were going in the car”. “I want it to become songs and to live forever through that medium,” she reasons.
Throughout the 12 tracks that make up ‘Ambiguous Desire’, you can not only hear but also feel the layers of sound and texture on your skin as Parks’ poetic pen transports you to the scenes the album captures. Making a record that could speak to multiple senses was the result of her decision to be patient with herself and her work. “The artists I’ve always looked up to have taken their time. They have intermittently gone through moments of being prolific and throwing out mixtapes or double singles,” she says, citing Dev Hynes, Solange and her collaborator Sampha. “All these artists have their own pacing. [With] this third record, I wanted to experiment, and I wanted to grow and learn. It felt like time to do things a little differently. I’ve always wanted to be a career artist and have long thought about this long-arc creative journey of my life.”
After intense years on the road, a move from London to Los Angeles, and a high-profile romantic relationship and breakup with Ashnikko, recording her third album was a necessary catharsis for Parks. “It definitely was about healing,” she says. “It was about putting words to a lot of feelings. It was about falling in love. It was about self-acceptance and wanting to understand myself better and my place in the world, wanting to express myself and have fun. For me, the music has always been this place to disentangle complicated feelings I have or remember some of the best days or nights, beautiful moments I’ve had with a person.” At the end of that process this time around, Parks felt “more confident and settled into myself as a person”.
It wasn’t just the writing and recording of ‘Ambiguous Desire’ that changed the artist, but the hedonistic New York nights that fuelled it. After realising just how transformative dancing, clubbing, and embracing desire can be, she’s now planning to bring this newfound acceptance, lightness, and movement into the next chapters of her life and career. “It’s something that has taken time, and it’s a big part of what keeps me balanced and what makes me feel happy,” she says. “I think being intentional about finding a way to take care of myself or enjoy something in the day [is important]. Even when I am really busy and travelling, I still love going dancing.”
“The way I freeze those moments is through songs, and that’s how I immortalise these things. I don’t wanna forget”
While her previous albums were immersive and indie pop with lo-fi beats, gentle guitars, and soft percussion, her latest work shifts to the centre of the dancefloor, drawing on house, electronic music, and techno, merging the genres with her signature spacious sounds. Regarding how fans may receive her sonic departure to more melancholic, ambient sounds, she hopes it offers them “a soft place to land and listen to as they move through their own journeys”. “It’s a record that might connect with people who are also in a transitional moment in life or trying to build up the courage to reach for some dream or fall in love. I hope it soundtracks a distinct period in someone’s life.”
She also wants listeners to feel inspired to dance, move, and to explore darker, more atmospheric sounds. “The people who gravitated to my earlier music that was more rooted in guitars and indie sounds and slightly softer, might not have heard of Burial,” she says, referencing the electronic musician known for his haunting club tracks. “I hope it will be a discovery for a lot of people.”
Arlo Parks’ ‘Ambiguous Desire’ is out on April 3 via Transgressive Records.