“There is something fascinating about being bewitched by the DJ for six or eight hours”

Arlo Parks She began her career when she was just a teenager, before she turned eighteen her first song appeared. At twenty he already released his debut album, “Collapsed In Sunbeams” (21), at twenty years old. Later they would receive the prestigious Mercury Prize, the album “My Soft Machine” (23) and, a few months ago, “Ambiguous Desire” (Transgressive, 26).

From the age of eighteen to the age of twenty-two, the career of Arlo Parks She has been on the upswing, but her mental health has not been so much, something that led her to have to cancel some concerts. Even so, the industry does not stop and in January 2023 their second album appeared, “My Soft Machine”an album in which she sounded exhausted. So she decided to stop, forget about her career and recover her youth, she immersed herself deeply in the dance and club scene in the United States, which charged her with energy and made that music filter down to her third album, “Ambiguous Desire”in which her usual melancholic style is mixed with some more club influences to create a hybrid that, as she herself admits, sounds more like Massive Attack than like “brat”. She admits the moment she fell spellbound on the dance floor. “The first time I walked into a club, specifically the Black Flamingo in New York, I experienced this feeling of belonging and excitement. I felt safe and on an adventure at the same time. That’s when I discovered that this was a sonic rabbit hole that I was going to fall down and that something was going to penetrate my music.”. And that was on that first night, but as he went out to more and more clubs it solidified. “On the dance floor there is like a friction between the public and the private. You can have those totally individual moments, in which you can feel alive and transcendent, but you are in the middle of hundreds or thousands of people dancing like you. I love that contrast. There is something fascinating about being bewitched by the DJ for six or eight hours. It’s something unique. It brings out something more bookish and unconscious in people.”

“I would love to write a soundtrack for a movie”

But, of course, he knows that his music, his melodies and his lyrics, tend towards a more melancholic side, “I think there is something at the heart of my music, the poetry, the emotions, that always comes out in my songs. As I move into different genres or different sonic palettes, that always remains and comes out the same, so yes this album is a kind of marriage between the two”

Regarding the most marked musical influences on this album, he states that “If I had to name the first thing that comes to mind it would be “Protection” by Massive Attack, and also “Blue Lines”. I read a book about how “Blue Lines” was made and how they fused American hip hop with Caribbean sounds, poetry with trip hop, they fused many genres and something really innovative and exciting came out. So Massive Attack definitely. Also the DJ Honey Dijon has been a big influence, the album “Rounds” by Four Tet, Joy Orbison too, that period between 2009 and 2011 in the UK of post dubstep with Joy Orbison and early James Blake, all that kind of stuff.

But he also immersed himself in the origins of disco music. Regarding the pioneers, he shares with me a small playlist with his favorite songs from the days of Paradise Garage or Studio 54, “The first thing that comes to mind is the song “Peanut Butter”, in the Larry Levan remix, by this artist called Gwen Guthrie that I love, the 12-inch version of the song “Number One” by Patrice Rushen, the song “Is It All Over My Face” by Loose Joints, “I Need Somebody To Love Tonight” by Sylvester and “Mystery of Love” by Mr Fingers.”

Her immersion has been such that she has also made her first steps as a DJ, so I ask her what are the songs that are not usually missing from her sessions and she answers that “I would say “Pop Life” by Prince, I love that song, it’s so underrated, there would be some Kelly Lee Owens, a little bit of Baltimore clubs, some Daniel Avery. I like to add more electronic to more euphoric things to make people happy. People want to be happy and have a good time on the dance floor, so you have to add fun songs.”

He also acknowledges the enormous importance that his move to Los Angeles has had on the album, “It has made me feel settled, it has brought me peace, the community that I have found, everything has defined the album. This album has been defined in nights that I have spent with my friends there, at my house, playing on my mini disk, but also the LA club scene has given me a lot of confidence in myself.”

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Towards the end of our talk I ask him what the experience of writing for Beyoncé was like, specifically on “Ya Ya,” a song that appeared on “Cowboy Carter” and he answers that it was there where he couldor “seeing what a great arranger Beyoncé is, it was a mix of multiple songs and samples, it was incredible to be a small part of that great machine. Plus I love writing for other people and I want to do it more often.”

I take the opportunity to finish by asking him who he would be most excited to write for and after acknowledging that his dream collaboration would be with Thom Yorke, since Radiohead is his favorite band of all time, what he would be most excited about would be “Writing a soundtrack for a movie, that’s something I would love to do, collaborating with a director to create something like that, that would be fantastic.”