Arlo Parks

Sweating under the strobes at Midnight Lovers in LA, dancing to the bass beneath the K Bridge in Greenpoint, finding new faces at Venue MOT in London – these are the dark, enveloping spaces giving life to Arlo Parks’ powerful third album, Ambiguous Desire.

“I fell in love with nocturnal spaces over the past two years of writing this album,” Parks says. “These were places where I could be whoever I wanted to be on that night, from staying on the fringes to throwing myself into it completely and escaping for hours on the dancefloor. It was so playful, being able to lose yourself and then reemerge into the world. Every time I came out into the daylight, I felt so inspired.”

The result is 12 tracks of Parks’ most vulnerable, self-affirming and euphoric music to date. Songs highlighted on the record include:
- “Get Go”: plays through pirate radio breakbeats as Parks recounts someone surrendering to the thrill of the night.
- “Beams”: builds shimmering chords over tender lyrics about healing from a damaging former love.
- “Senses”: features Sampha in an introspective, soulful examination of destructive relationships; Parks says, “He’s created an entire sound of his own... I wrote him a letter about the song and he held it so gently and completely understood what I was trying to say.”
- “Floette”: blossoms into a soaring melody of queer bliss and, as Parks puts it, is “a really joyful testament to queerness and blossoming into yourself.”
- “Heaven”: driven by a cathartic, earth-shaking bass frequency.
- “Nightswimming”: uses a UK Garage two-stepping rhythm beneath Parks’ harmonies about the comfort of falling in love.

Referencing influences from the queer hedonism of Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage to the moody British beats of The Streets and Burial, the synth catharsis of LCD Soundsystem and rooted house grooves of Theo Parrish, Ambiguous Desire finds the 25-year-old Parks confident and experimental. “I feel most myself in my body when I’m dancing,” she says, “and being in those expressive spaces gave me the confidence to explore the artists that I’ve loved forever but haven’t been able to showcase in my music before.”

Parks emerged with her distinct lyrical voice on 2019’s debut EP Super Sad Generation, won the Mercury Prize for 2021’s Gold-certified Collapsed in Sunbeams, was named a Breakthrough Artist at the 2021 Brit Awards, and has received Grammy and Ivor Novello nominations. She has performed at Glastonbury and Coachella, opened for Billie Eilish and Harry Styles, headlined a global tour for 2023’s My Soft Machine, and published a debut book, The Magic Border, in 2023.

Since 2021 Parks has been living in Los Angeles, but finishing a tour in New York at the start of 2024 sparked a new source of inspiration. “I had this blissful experience there meeting friends, going out and running through the streets,” she says. She spent more time in New York, linked up with producer Baird (Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract), and began work on Ambiguous Desire, alternating nights out in community-focused spaces with daytime sessions in Baird’s downtown loft using modular synths, Ableton plugins and samplers.

“That freewheeling process resonates through songs like ‘Heaven’,” Parks says, inspired by dancing to DJ Kelly Lee Owens, and ‘‘Get Go’ imagines the stories of those characters you only ever see at night in the club.” She describes her writing as instinctual and says consistency in creating allowed her to get into a flow state where she felt unselfconscious and confident.

With additional production from Paul Epworth, Buddy Ross and Andrew Sarlo, Ambiguous Desire moves Parks into a newly intuitive, vibrant chapter of her artistry. She will be touring the record extensively from Autumn 2026, with several smaller, more intimate shows planned for the end of 2025, and forthcoming club-focused remixes from producers including Jacques Greene and John Glacier.

“I’m gonna pop my head up all over the place so that this record can accompany people wherever they are,” Parks says. “I want it to be music that people experience in motion – on the bus or at golden hour with your friends, on your way to the club or coming back from it, these are songs that allow you to return to yourself.”

Like descending into the thrill of close-knit new bodies or emerging from the bass into blistering daylight, Ambiguous Desire is a soundtrack to unguarded self-expression.

This is a Golden Ticket eligible event.

ARLO PARKS - at Metro Music Hall (Salt Lake City)