Seeing Arlo Parks raving on a lit-up dance floor in the video for "2SIDED," the lead single from her third album Ambiguous Desire, felt akin to seeing Beyoncé at a Grizzly Bear show, or Thom Yorke in the crowd for Billie Eilish. You understand it's obviously physically possible that these things could happen, but you're left pondering how such seemingly ill-fitting puzzle pieces came to connect.Up until this point, the South London singer-songwriter resided in the sultry, sophisticated surrounds of neo-soul and future R&B — resulting in her Mercury Prize-winning debut, Collapsed in Sunbeams, and its acclaimed follow-up, My Soft Machine. While never exactly an AC/DC level of genre devotion, Parks' velvety, breathy vocals and emotive lyricism felt comfortable within that immediate spectrum. Naturally, this makes her freshly minted parlay out of it all the more intriguing.Despite being such a significant sonic side-step, Parks sounds like she's always belonged here. With production predominantly handled by American producer Baird (Danny Brown, BROCKHAMPTON), she weaves through his clattering breakbeats and absolutely floats atop the wafting synth lines.Little about her delivery has fundamentally changed, but you still pick up on the minutiae. You can sense the joy when the breezy, hands-in-the-air chorus of "Get Go" takes flight, for instance, or the fluttering shuffle of the hook in "Nightswimming" tessellating with its dry, syncopated beat. Parks is as heartfelt as she ever was, but it's now within a liminal space of defiant delight; hands reaching out, publicly caught in the push and pull of human emotion.On the sleeve of the physical album, in her own handwriting, the artist describes Ambiguous Desire as "a record to find yourself in, and lose yourself in." She's right, of course, but this is an album that's also much more than that: it's a leap of faith, a self-assured reinvention, and a testament to Parks' chameleonic staying power.
Wavelength
Rate and discover music with friends
