ARLO PARKS - AMBIGUOUS DESIRE
Within every club, walls fighting to contain both music and dancers, crowd ebbing and flowing under a shimmering glitterball, it's too easy to overlook those subtle, intimate moments that hide under the fluorescent lights or slip through the pounding baselines but ultimately define the night. Ambiguous Desire celebrates these moments, welcoming that push and pull between losing yourself in the moment and staying in touch with reality.
Inspired by the community and catharsis found behind the decks of her local clubs, Arlo Parks invites listeners onto a dancefloor full of synth-heavy hooks, garage-inspired texture, jazzy flourishes on her new record, guiding them through bars, clubs and post-night-out takeaways with her signature velvety vocals and lyricism that dances flawlessly between poetic introspection, late night musings and clumsy, authentic interactions between friends.
In many ways this album stands as a complete antithesis to her debut record Collapsed in the Sunbeams and a complete reinvention from her 2023 release My Soft Machine, both of which feel like they were written onto journal pages illuminated by sunlight trickling in through an open bedroom window. Day and night from her previous works, Ambiguous Desire thrives under midnight skies and hazy lights, with each song painted with brighter, more saturated brushstrokes than she has ever dared before whilst still retaining that warm haze and honest lyricism that continues to be a highlight of her music.
Like many great stories, Ambiguous Desire begins at the end. ‘Blue Disco’ sets the scene of tipsy domestic bliss, cleaning up the evidence of a night well spent with the people you love, watching the final party-goers trickle out as the sun begins to peek through. Led by a muffled yet prominent percussive beat, between which dreamy, pensive synths rise and fall like a swarming crowd, Parks sings with an infectious warmth of the magic in the mundane. The magic of her songwriting once again lies in her ability to bring each scene to life with unforgiving accuracy whilst leaving room for the listener to insert their own experiences - at once unique and universal.
Lead singles ‘Get Go’ and ‘2SIDED’ stand out as instant hits - catchy, fun and free, as she trades in her gentle bedroom beats for something much more wild and whimsical. Fast, tinkering percussion and wavy synths guide the way through dimly-lit bars and increasingly disorienting crowds, attempting to find the equilibrium of diving headfirst into each moment and being held back by glimmers of doubt. Ultimately, though, even the most introspective overthinkers can have fun in the right conditions, and thus Arlo Parks embraces the messy and the unpredictable.
“This is being immortalised” she declares in the outro of ‘Jetta’, a swirling, stumbling track with techno influence bleeding through every beat as she recalls the anticipation that builds as the night is born. It’s that feeling of; anything can happen (for better or worse) and you are exactly where you are meant to be. Throughout each track, Parks’ light, captivating vocals continue to sooth in even the most experimental, clamouring moments of the album, like her mantra of “We’re blossoming” in final track ‘Floette’ as a cacophony of jungle-esque percussion blooms around her warm vocalisations. While a far cry from her sunny bedroom, there’s still something grounded and earthy about these moments, as if the music itself is sprouting from the ground and following its own life cycle. ‘Senses’ featuring Sampha follows this formula to a science, as the two distinct but complimentary vocalists swim with gorgeous harmony through ambient beats, jazzy, cascading piano keys and streams of liquid gold guitar strokes before eventually resolving to a goose-bump-inducing chord change that pulls them towards something a little darker.
Arlo Parks is far from the first artist to turn to the dancefloor for inspiration and escape in recent years, especially with Ambiguous Desire bravely following Harry Styles’ club-born Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally all whilst the ghost of Brat summer still lingers. But what sets this record apart from its predecessors is the intimacy and introspection that follow Parks into even the most carefree spaces. While not as immediately reflective as her previous projects, there is plenty of room in between the jittering drums and infectious synths for moments of candid introspection. Anchored by wistful yet melancholic guitar strokes that reverberate around the empty space, ‘South Seconds’ is a short but impactful detour from the scattered beats and vibrant synths in which Arlo Parks is overcome with uncertainty and anguish in the face of love. “I’m scared of love but I try to / Trust we want the same things / With the sun in your hair,” she sings with a combination of yearning and defeat, cocooned in ethereal harmonies that echo her doubts.
As society leans closer and closer towards conservatism, there’s an art and a liberation that comes from embracing the night, surrendering to the music and dancing with the people you love. With Ambiguous Desire, Arlo Parks does just that, inviting listeners to connect both with themselves and their community while the rest of the world sleeps. Whilst this may at first seem a disappointment to those who crave a gentle, stripped-back composition of previous records, with each track, Ambiguous Desire proves itself to be a dynamic and complex body of work exploring heartbreak, healing, bonding and escapism. An ode to nocturnal adventures, smiles of appreciation from across a dance circle, clumsy confessions over cheesy chips and moments of self-realisation in the midst of gin-fueled chaos.
Heather Swift
★★★★☆
