Arlo Parks - Ambiguous Desire 

In the time since the release of second album ‘My Soft Machine’ in 2023, Arlo Parks has thrown herself into the nocturnal underbelly of New York City, slipping into spaces far removed from the spotlight where she could exist on her own terms. That club-rooted energy courses through this third full-length album, ‘Ambiguous Desire’, as she draws on influences ranging from The Streets to Burial, LCD Soundsystem and Theo Parrish to become her most confident and assured self yet.

Arlo isn’t the first artist to turn to the dancefloor for inspiration of late, and here the signature poetic lyricism and hushed vocal delivery that defined both ‘My Soft Machine’ and her debut ‘Collapsed In Sunbeams’ remains, casting a thread of melancholy euphoria across every corner of ‘Ambiguous Desire’. As its title suggests, desire runs through the core of the record, presented as something complex, mysterious and sometimes unexplainable.

On lead single ‘2SIDED’ - one of the record’s most immediate and upbeat moments - Arlo yearns for her feelings to be reciprocated, standing outside the club while her friends dance inside, burdened by “a sadness that [she] really can’t shake.” ‘Get Go’ follows a friend, Marie, as she tries to dance through heartbreak, only to be confronted by the sight of her ex at the bar with someone new. Elsewhere, ‘Beams’ sees Arlo navigating the tension between following desire and meeting expectations: “I know it’s not the way to treat people you love / I know it’s the right thing to do, but I don’t want to”. ‘Heaven’ draws both its lyrical and sonic cues from an early morning DJ set by friend and fellow musician Kelly Lee Owens, held beneath a bridge at her favourite Los Angeles rave. Similarly, opener ‘Blue Disco’ captures the atmosphere of a party with striking precision, from the smell of chips and gin to the image of someone’s cousin being sick out the back. The lyrics resist romanticising the scene, instead using detail to render it vividly real.

Rather than leaning into full-scale hedonism, there’s a vulnerability that underpins ‘Ambiguous Desire’, as it presents the dancefloor not only as a space for release and communal joy, but as somewhere to momentarily escape the weight of everyday life, while still acknowledging the inevitable return to reality that can surface mid-night, or in the quiet aftermath. It’s an album that feels lived in, drawing listeners into its world while leaving room for their own experiences to settle between the lines. In the tension between euphoria and comedown, connection and isolation, Arlo Parks delivers her most vividly realised and affecting body of work to date.