{"id":1861864,"date":"2026-04-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1861864"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T21:00:00","slug":"wonderland-115","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1861864","title":{"rendered":"Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\tWonderland<\/span>
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\n\t\t\tARLO PARKS FINDS HER AFTERGLOW\u00a0<\/span>
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Under neon lights, sizzling synths and booming basses, Arlo Parks has found a new sound. With her third studio album, Ambiguous Desire<\/em>, the singer-songwriter trades quiet introspection for the pulse of the dance floor.\u00a0<\/h3>\n
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\"Arlo
Photography by SULLY<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

When I meet singer-songwriter Arlo Parks, albeit virtually, it\u2019s over Zoom on a sunny Friday \u2013 one of the few we\u2019ve had this year so far. Her voice twinkles and her smile is bright, as she joins me from the comfort of what looks to be a very cushty couch, set against white walls, with framed abstract art pieces hung upon them. However, the first time I actually \u2018met\u2019 her was when her hit single \u201cBlack Dog\u201d from her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams<\/a>, <\/em>played like a broken record through my headphones. Penning dark, poignant lyrics against sweet melodies with airy vocals, she was a precursor to bedroom pop before it was established as such.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Against a backdrop where nightlife is constantly under threat, third spaces are fighting to survive, and it\u2019s getting harder to keep the night young, Arlo may have cracked the code. Now, at 25, she\u2019s launching herself into a new era that was born out of the experience of living \u2013 truly and fully. Ambiguous Desire<\/em>, her third studio album releasing 3rd April via Transgressive Records, details this in all its boozy, booming, and bouncy finesse. Inspired by club nights and time spent in nocturnal spaces, which she felt like a late bloomer to, it\u2019s like she\u2019s discovering a forgotten part of her youth \u2013 rectifying missed opportunities. <\/p>\n

Finding balance is central to this journey. The seesaw to both her life and career has become mostly level, leaving room for her to enjoy living, still, while becoming the artist she strives to be, which is how Ambiguous Desire<\/em> was born. From her introduction on our call alone, it\u2019s clear she\u2019s found her flow, even if she has an Excel spreadsheet helping her do so: \u201cI just got back from DJ practice, because I\u2019m going to Berlin in a couple of days to play Rough Trade and do a couple other sets. But I got to see my best friend this morning for a coffee, so that was really nice,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Through Ambiguous Desire<\/em>, Arlo tells the story of her party-filled excursions across three major music cities that are important to her: London, where Arlo was raised and came of age, Los Angeles, where she moved in 2022 and quietly rebuilt her life, and the city that never sleeps, New York. In LA, she partied away amongst the underground soir\u00e9e of Midnight Lovers, a monthly party that spotlights DJs from around the world \u2013 British artist-producer Leon Vynehall<\/a>, as well as Spanish and Brazilian DJs. \u201cI like the fact that it feels like lots of different cultures being brought into one,\u201d she says. Meanwhile, on the East Coast, she frequented the now-closed Black Flamingo, Nowadays, Basement and Bossa Nova Civic, sometimes finding herself at Brooklyn\u2019s Under The K-Bridge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe geography is so different,\u201d she muses on LA. \u201cThe way you move through it, the spaces where you\u2019re listening to your demos \u2013 even just being in the sun and having access to nature.\u201d She arrived there, having solidified who she was as a musician, and that assurance gave her a fresher freedom to explore her humanity with a new backdrop. Staying in one place for longer than she ever had before, she fell into a comfortable routine: gym, studio, explore, dinner, home. Day after day, that discipline permitted her to get weirder \u2013 a \u201csoft place to land,\u201d she says. \u201cThat weirdly gave me the courage to be experimental and wild in my creativity, and know I had a home to come back to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, London is the ghost that never leaves the room \u2013 it has that effect on people. Arlo speaks on the city and wider UK\u2019s nightlife with a kind of protective pride, name-dropping Manchester\u2019s Warehouse Project, Bristol\u2019s trip-hop lineage, the deep roots of pirate radio, and the way clubs like fabric and Printworks become institutions through sheer persistence. \u201cYou know, London will always be home. I was so intentional about bringing London to this album,\u201d she laughs. Hence, the pirate radio samples and the sounds straight from Mike Skinner\u2019s The Streets \u2013 \u201cthat was so important to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Arlo<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

With \u201cSenses\u201d, the only feature on the album where she enlists the help of her peer and friend, South London-born musician Sampha, she shows just how vital that homegrown sound is. \u201cHe really understands the nuances of what it means to be alive, to love and to grieve \u2013 on a gut level. I\u2019ve always felt that in him and in his music,\u201d she says admiringly of the fellow Mercury Prize-winning Brit. \u201cHe\u2019s also such a shapeshifter when it comes to genre; Process<\/em> versus the Subtract<\/em> stuff from the 2010s to this more recent, more afro-futurist experimental record.\u201d And then, of course, there\u2019s his voice \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s like a woodwind instrument or a cello, [there\u2019s] something really ancient and incredible about it. So I\u2019ve always looked up to him for those reasons and many more.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, LA feels more fluid, more liminal. \u201cIt\u2019s more DIY \u2013 warehouses and transitional spaces,\u201d she explains. \u201cThere aren\u2019t as many institutions. And the flavour of the DJs is different \u2013 in London, I love people like Joy Orbison or Loraine James, and I love garage. In LA, you get more house and funk and American traditions \u2013 going between the two gives you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through this all, it wasn\u2019t just the music reverberating through the dance floor that she found an affinity for, but the testimonials she got to witness and be a part of before the night even started. \u201cI\u2019ve had so many extra deep conversations \u2013 someone\u2019s moving through a breakup, and everyone\u2019s in the queue, and they\u2019re like \u2018It\u2019s fine. You\u2019re better than him, you\u2019re better than this. You\u2019ll find love.\u2019 Those magic moments where everyone pipes up to support someone who\u2019s going through something,\u201d she says. Even under minimal lights, faces masked by darkness but lit by pure elation, \u201cyou really see a different side of people, and you see them at their most free and loose.\u201d This is what she sought to emulate on Ambiguous Desire<\/em> \u2013 and that\u2019s what she inevitably succeeded in doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Naturally, she mixed all of these nuggets of inspiration into her own melting pot. \u201cThere were so many of these nocturnal spaces. I spent a lot of time just DJing at home, and it was very much an afternoon-into-evening thing,\u201d she says, reminiscing on downtime spent eating tacos and playing Stevie Wonder. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be \u2018till seven in the morning, raging techno. I think it\u2019s more just about music and togetherness \u2013 and it can be for anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The record places emphasis on rhythm and percussion. \u201cYou could maybe draw a tie from a \u201cBeams\u201d to a \u201cWhat If I Say It?\u201d to a \u201cBlack Dog\u201d with the drums that I\u2019m using,\u201d she says excitedly. \u201cThere\u2019s also a sense of the verses and the pre-choruses maybe establishing the detail and the story, and then the chorus being this more universal sentiment that ties everything together. I gravitate to those structures and warmer guitar sounds and harmonies \u2013 and obviously, the tone of my voice.\u201d It\u2019s still Arlo, just with some new additions \u2013 a nod to the new sounds (electronic, techno, dub) she fell in love with.<\/p>\n

On Ambiguous Desire<\/em>, Arlo really let herself feel free, stretching her style to new expanses. \u201cI think the choices are almost unconscious before they\u2019re conscious,\u201d she admits. During the making of the album, Arlo didn\u2019t at first acknowledge that she was leaning into a more electronic direction, \u201cbecause I had a lot more time once I did discover the world that it was operating in, we had a lot of time to fine-tune things. Maybe I would notice patterns. A lot of these songs have a drone in the background, or we add pads at the end, and add a few of those motifs in other songs, actively challenging what we\u2019ve done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thematically, the album forms its own love story. Not necessarily your traditional romcom with a happy ending, but undoubtedly a sonic offering of a celebration of love\u2019s breadth \u2013 and in this case, how that\u2019s conveyed on the dancefloor. \u201cI was really inspired by so many different forms of love and desire to connect,\u201d she shares. \u201cI was interested in this kind of collective love that you experience when you\u2019re on the dance floor, where you feel like you\u2019re connected to something bigger than you, and you\u2019re sharing this experience that only lasts a few hours in this one specific space, and you feel this sense of kinship.\u201d This is how Arlo\u2019s music has always felt. She may be a \u2018voice of a generation\u2019 \u2013 as she\u2019s been heralded by critics \u2013 but at the core, she is drawn to collectivity and connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI immediately had a sense of belonging,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d always felt that there was something special about people coming together in a dark room, loud music through shows \u2013 playing shows and going to shows. I knew there was a magic there.\u201d Being a background character in the \u201clittle private journeys\u201d of fellow night-seekers and clubbers proved cathartic, allowing Arlo to feel a lack of judgment and self-consciousness. \u201cA lot of it is embracing the yearning and the seeking, learning to be present and content, and that battle back and forth is something that I was exploring a lot in the record. I didn\u2019t necessarily come to any solutions. It was more just writing around the question.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that questioning, she learnt how to let the story lead and when to step back and let the synths, pads and drum breaks carry the emotion. \u201cMy instinct is to say more,\u201d she admits, with a slight laugh. \u201cBut some of the emotions felt beyond language. I needed to let the music describe the feeling.\u201d It all comes back to that balance; giving way to \u201csomething really natural and automatic about the songs that made the record,\u201d she says. \u201cIt never felt like I was forcing something that wasn\u2019t working.\u201d \u201c2SIDED\u201d came quickly in melody and story, even if the production took much longer to refine. \u201cFlower\u201d, the first song written for the record, unravelled on a calm Sunday with a friend, before she\u2019d even admitted to herself she was making an album. Most of the tracks arrived of their own accord \u2013 early and quickly \u2013 and yet, the through-line is unmistakably Arlo.<\/p>\n

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\"Arlo<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

As the singer-songwriter gears up for the album\u2019s tour, Arlo is figuring out how this story can be reimagined live. The traditional band set-up is evolving into something more reflective of this era: samplers, synths, triggers \u2013 honouring both the classic, naturalistic material and the new, club-leaning work. She\u2019s thinking about lighting, subtly over spectacle, drawing from Wong Kar-wai films, Hype Williams visuals, Massive Attack and Underworld. All of this jumbled together to answer the question: How do you bring an album about nocturnal transformation to a stage in 2026 without losing its intimacy?<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it comes back to her relationship with her fans. Since her debut, Arlo has been framed as an emblem of softness and emotional clarity \u2013 a poet for a generation that grew up online and burnt out young. But she\u2019s never felt trapped by that early image. \u201cI always wanted to be a career artist,\u201d she says. \u201cI trusted people would grow with me. I started when I was 17 \u2013 no one would want me to make that album over and over. The change has always felt natural.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At shows, she\u2019s found that the affection people associate with her records doesn\u2019t evaporate just because the BPM has gone up. If anything, the shared catharsis has simply expanded. Recent under-200-cap events \u2013 DJ sets, record store in-stores, her brief run of Sonic Exploration nights, intimate shows across London, LA and NYC that she ran late last year \u2013 have only confirmed how much she values closeness. \u201cRecord shops feel like libraries,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone\u2019s welcome, everyone\u2019s discovering. There\u2019s a magic to being surrounded by physical objects made with so much care. And lifting up independent spaces is important \u2013 you have to bring people there to keep them alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

This new dawn is also about making sure she<\/em> feels alive \u2013 from the studio to the stage, her idea of \u201cliving\u201d has become quieter, but no less vivid. Reading, especially photography, \u201cthose chronicles of time,\u201d and architecture books have her attention. Criterion, arthouse quirks. Long afternoons by lakes or the ocean. Obsessive food pilgrimages. Friends, laughter, sleep. Tiny moments of joy that keep the big nights in focus. \u201cLiving, for me, now is spending time with the people I love,\u201d she says. \u201cNurturing all the different strands of my creativity \u2013 music, writing, maybe a screenplay, DJing \u2013 and just staying curious. Getting enough sleep. And trying to find some fun in the day somehow, even if it\u2019s tiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambiguous Desire <\/em>isn\u2019t a problem Arlo Parks is trying to solve but rather a state that she\u2019s learning to live inside (or alongside): the wanting and the letting go, the rave and the ride home, the young teen who wrote poems alone in her room and the woman leading a crowd through the night. It\u2019s not like she\u2019s trying to close the gap \u2013 she\u2019s simply filling the space in between.<\/p>\n

Pre-save \/ listen to Ambiguous Desire here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Words \u2013 Aswan Magumbe<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t2 April 2026\t\t\t<\/div>\n
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Feature Interview<\/a><\/div>\n
Music<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\tThe Eight Best Films We Saw At BFI Flare<\/span> <\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonderland ARLO PARKS FINDS HER AFTERGLOW\u00a0 Under neon lights, sizzling synths and booming basses, Arlo Parks has found a new sound. With her third studio album, Ambiguous Desire, the singer-songwriter trades quiet introspection for the pulse of the dance floor.\u00a0 Photography by SULLY When I meet singer-songwriter Arlo Parks, albeit virtually, it\u2019s over Zoom on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,257],"class_list":["post-1861864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-wonderlandmagazine-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1861864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1861864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1861864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1861864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}