Arlo Parks talks rediscovering herself on the dancefloor for third album 'Ambiguous Desire' • Cover Feature • DIY Magazine

Arlo Parks is gazing outside her LA apartment window, admiring the bleak Thursday morning grey clouds, telling us how it reminds her of London. In some ways, it’s hard to believe that the former Hackney regular has relocated abroad, swapping dining at Elliot’s for underground New York clubs. Now, she’s speaking from a suave living room - a striking black-and-white painting gifted from a close friend hangs behind her - that’s cosily filled with a closet’s worth of books (notably, shelves of Yves Klein signature blue Fitzcarraldo Editions). It’s been almost four years since Arlo made her move - in some part due to a previous relationship - but today she seems ebullient, even with a busy schedule of in-person promo pencilled in. Or, as she charmingly puts it, she’s been away in “interview land”.

At 25, Arlo’s world of radical intimacy and hushed tones have become her industry imprint. Her tender debut single ‘Cola’ quickly picked up praise and amassed almost three million streams online. By 2020, the West London-born singer’s lyrics on friendship, yearning love and the emotional fallout of heartbreak positioned her, rightly, as Britain’s must-know indie star. The fierce might of her minimalist trip-hop and carefully calibrated tracks, enmeshed with thoughtful, poetic lines, earned her global fans including Phoebe Bridgers, Billie Eilish and Lorde. In the same year, she was hotly appointed as BBC’s Introducing Artist of the Year. By 2021, Parks’ name was stratospheric.

When her coolly pleasant debut album ‘Collapsed In Sunbeams’ landed, Arlo won a slew of awards: the BRITs named her Best New Artist, she scooped the Mercury Prize’s coveted Album of the Year trophy, and was a tri-fold nominee at the MOBOs. In 2023, she released her second album, ‘My Soft Machine’, which peaked promisingly at #9 in the Official Albums Chart. Now, eager to share her third album, ‘Ambiguous Desire’, she’s ready to step back into the industry limelight.

It wasn’t so very long ago that Arlo took a self-advised break from music, cancelling tour dates with a post on social media that highlighted her need for time to rest and recuperate. Now, her brain whirring, she’s already reflecting on what life will be like after her new album, keenly awaiting fans and critics to join her new sonic wavelength.

“I looked at the little Spotify countdown and there’s only a month and a half [left]. I thought: ‘oh my goodness!’,” she laughs, lighting up. “It feels exciting because, with this music, I feel like I put so much of myself into it. When it comes out, I’m going to feel as represented as I am now, sonically, which is really exciting to me.”

“ I got to the end of the last album cycle and thought: ‘Okay, I need to carve out a space for spontaneity and to just live some life’.

Biding time between now and her release date, Arlo has filled her quieter oments away from the public eye, curiously soaking up Criterion Collection movies, screen-stepping from Robert Altman’s Three Women, to Sluizer’s The Vanishing and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, to art house documentaries and Kim Gordon’s autobiography. She creates time to feel out new types of storytelling, revealing that she’s been watching a lot of new wave Taiwanese films and digging into the history of New York City’s famous Mudd Club.

“You can hear in the music what I was directly swimming in on a life level, but also in terms of what creative food I was taking in,” she says. Taking time out, Arlo realised she needed to explore her freedom and indulge in things she had missed out on [in her early twenties], even if that meant putting aside her beloved avant-garde Maggie Nelson books. “I got to the end of the last album cycle and thought: ‘okay, I need to carve out a space for spontaneity and to just live some life’. I’ve been here in LA for almost four years now, but I spent so many of those first few years touring, in motion, and I didn’t get to grow deep roots.”

Intuitively following a feeling, Arlo discovered her great, sweaty escape in New York City, seeking out connection via Paradise Garage and David Mancuso’s iconic Loft, and finding euphoria in DJ legend Larry Levan. “I was spending a lot more time in New York, where there is so much culture around dance spaces, club spaces, and community. These DIY hubs are where outsiders and people who are trying to find their place in the world come together, and it’s been that way since forever. I found myself kind of sucked into that world,” she reflects.

‘Ambiguous Desire’ is an album as curated as its title, its skittering, club-beat rhythm thrumming away as Arlo’s gentle vocal washes through its 12 tracks. On lead single ‘2SIDED’, she breezily confesses to waiting for the right moment all night, only making it out for the romantic interest in question. Having grown up with her mum listening to Diana Ross, Whitney Houston, Prince, and Michael Jackson, she draws on these influences - and their deep cuts - with delight.

Her switch to a beating club-inspired album, then, has been an idea long pinging away in the back of her mind. “I was brought up with the feeling of music creating movement. I’ve [always] been really connected to electronic music, whether it’s kind of the post-dubstep Joy Orbison, early James Blake, Hessle Audio, Cody 9 or all the Hyperdub stuff, or artists who have sprinkles of electronic elements, like Underworld or Radiohead’s ‘King of Limbs’ remix album, where it’s kind of blending both,” she says. “I always had a connection to that music, and so it was almost stored up inside me. I didn’t know when, but I knew it would come out in the work.”

Arlo’s notes are well studied and her music fine-tuned, with glimmers of 2007 Radiohead (especially ‘In Rainbows’’ ‘Weird Fishes’) and Portishead’s ‘Dummy’ on display. “Those are two of my favourite records ever,” she says excitedly. “I’ve referenced them every single time. Literally last night I was listening to Portishead performing ‘Glory Box’ and ‘Cowboys’ live from Roseland Theatre - it’s that minimalism combined with the power of their two voices and how tasteful the drums are. Even before ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’, ‘In Rainbows’ and ‘Dummy’ have been my favourite records, so it makes sense; I’m glad that you heard that in it. I love it, I love it, I love it.”

“ We all have moments where we’re dancing and, suddenly, your real life or the world around you kind of flicks, and you start to reflect on the world outside that room.

The gentle authority of Arlo’s discography is illuminating. Her songs coax you in, drawing you into her crisp, well-measured soundscape. ‘Ambiguous Desire’ dials things up, with Arlo utilising the help of a long-time friend, Kelly Lee Owens. “Yes, my girl! I love that woman. It’s pure friendship, honestly,” she beams. “We first met when we were both about to get an easyJet flight to Porto and we figured out we were playing at the same three festivals in three different countries in a row, so it was kind of like summer camp. We’ve just hung out every day since then, and she’s a dear friend of mine.

“I love the way that she approaches her music. She’s so decisive and knife-sharp and just creates things that are so from the heart, which was inspiring to me in terms of approaching more electronic elements and techno,” she raves. “We’ve spent a lot of time together; she’s a spiritual, magical human being. She recommended this book, Poetics of Space, which is really amazing. I’ve just always felt so connected to Kelly.”

Of her lo-fi single ‘Heaven’, Arlo recalls a moment that transpired while at Kelly’s show in LA, inspiring the song. “With ‘Heaven’, I went to see her supporting Caribou at this venue that I love under the 6th Street Viaduct bridge, purely because we were mates. I love seeing her play. I love just seeing her in her element, so I wrote that song about that night.”

With the neon green days of ‘brat’ now passed, we’re seeing artists from all walks of life - from Arlo herself to Harry Styles - seeking to celebrate the anonymity and community of a frenetic nightclub, Arlo also praises FKA twigs’ latest album ‘EUSEXUA’, which earned the Hackney artist her first-ever GRAMMY win.

The unravelling of ‘Ambiguous Desire’, at times, showcases Arlo at her most vulnerable. It’s a record about nocturnal spaces and levity, but Parks also pulls back her pristine, magazine-ready, red-haired image to give a deeper look inside her mind. “I think it’s a space that everyone can get something out of. It’s been amazing to see so many people interpolating those experiences into [their work], because you can really hear it in the music,” she says. “Even thinking about Twigs’ record, Lorde’s [new] album, or Charli’s album, where it is a bit more off the cuff in a thoughtful way - there’s something there that I wanted to tap into too, where you’re just not getting in the way of yourself. You’re just flowing.”

“ I never really went to university or had a moment where I could just be free and dance, and move with a sense of abandon and anonymity.

‘Ambiguous Desire’ is as devastating as it is euphoric; over the course of the record, Arlo sings of an unshakeable sadness, a breakdown of communication in New York, and her yearning for peace. As an artist who’s often dizzyingly busy, she delicately showcases the fragile alongside elements of lust and determined self-discovery.

“I often have these moments where I’m trying to figure out where I belong or where I kind of get in my head. I feel like we all have moments where we’re dancing and, suddenly, your real life or the world around you kind of flicks, and you start to reflect on the world outside that room,” she explains. “You think about whether you’re moving through grief or confusion. It’s also just coming of age. I think I’m at the age where I’m coming into myself and understanding my place in the world. [‘South Seconds’] was a bit more personal, but it’s also broadly existential.”

Her art, then, is valiant and exposing. “I don’t think, for me at least, there would be much point in creating music that felt like it was almost shielding the truth,” she says. So, to craft a kinetic album, Arlo creates a fizzing multi-track getaway, one she says feels as rare and vibrant as a queer club room. “I started making music quite young. I never really went to university or had a moment where I could just be free and dance and move with a sense of abandon and anonymity,” she says. “I came to that a little bit later, and I do feel like there is something personally that drew me into that space where you lose yourself and find yourself at the same time. I think it’s something really unifying as well.”

As Arlo mulls over what she wants for the album, she settles on the idea of growth - one that taps into listeners’ cores, much like a vivid A24 film. “I want it to be something that people can journey with. I feel like there is a coming-of-age energy to the record, and I hope that people who are moving through transitions feel like it accompanies that journey,” she says.

There is a timelessness to ‘Ambiguous Desire’, as well as a mental cinematic visual that runs alongside it, like a glimmering lyric booklet. So, for fans that are ready for the full-experience, here are Parks’ favourite four films that, to her, creatively feel like ‘Ambiguous Desire’: “The first one would be Rebels Of The Neon God by Tsai Ming-liang, which I think really captures the kind of painterly visual poetry elements to the songs,” she muses. “Second would be The Moon Is The Oldest TV, which is a documentary about Nam June Paik, who was the pioneer of video art. It’s about performance art and New York - it’s that kind of alchemy that’s really interesting to me,” she shares.

“Then, there’s this documentary called Maestro, which is all about Paradise Garage and has interviews with Larry Levan and Todd Terry. It also has little mini interviews of people who were going to the club and spilling out onto the street at 4am - they’re talking about their favourite moments of the night, and you know that some of them were queer, and had possibly been disowned by their family, and had found [chosen] family there. It’s a really raw, naturalistic kind of filming that feels really true to the idea of the record. The last one is a film called Orpheus by Jean Cocteau. I’ve watched it so many times.”

As the Criterion closet of her mind closes, she reflects on her final note: “I want [‘Ambiguous Desire’] to be something people live with. My favourite records are ones that I live with - ones I can pull out and that remind me of a moment in my life, but that I can also always find new little nuggets to enjoy.”

‘Ambiguous Desire’ is out 3rd April via Transgressive.

Tags: Cover Features, Features, Arlo Parks, From The Magazine, March 2026