ARLO PARKS - Ambiguous Desire

Night falls. The air is electric, a feverish energy hangs in the atmosphere, and there's an irrepressible urge to lose yourself in the crowd, moving to the rhythm of the best contemporary club music. In the half-light of Midnight Lovers in Los Angeles, under the K Bridge in Greenpoint, New York, and beneath the purple glow of London's MOT Venue: within this triangle of dancefloor coordinates, anything can happen — clearing your mind of every worry, finally having a difficult conversation you've put off too long, running into someone who could change the course of your life. And so, why not draw on this whole tangle of experiences to craft the most personal and self-assured record of your career. The result of what Arlo Parks herself has described as a kind of delayed adolescence, "Ambiguous Desire" skilfully combines the delicate confessional nature of her first two albums with a substantial rhythmic arsenal, as wide-ranging in its references as it is tailored to the singer's refined interpretations. All to greet the first light of dawn with a smile.

It's hard to find in Parks' earlier work the same enthusiasm, the euphoric sense of rapture unleashed by tracks like "Heaven" and "Jetta". It matters little that the energetic drive of house or the recent trance revival is absent here: the goal is far from wanting to churn out yet another mass-produced dance-pop album. It should instead be sought in the echoes, in the reflections that the club setting leaves on the artist, who is then free to tailor them to her nimble pop language with a bespoke approach.

We find ourselves faced with garage sketches, perfect for chasing away the pain of a recent breakup (the aching display of friendship on "Get Go"), the rain-soaked atmospheres of Burial and the first wave of Dubstep, crafted with loving abandon (the 2-step openings that accompany "Nightswimming"), and the electric surge of uncertainty, worked up through decisive breakbeat sketches (the first single "2SIDED").

Everything counts in Parks' discotheque: loves, reflections, melancholies all find their centre of gravity around an energetic freshness, one that helps her find her way even through the darkest moments (the technoid streaks of "Luck Of Life"), and to confront her own pain head-on (the brilliant soulful shades of "Senses", alongside her friend Sampha).

In this fascinating, dimly lit gaze, Parks handles an elliptical style of songwriting that nonetheless always strives for effective communication, fully pop even when the setting might seem to reward other approaches. In this awakening of the senses, in this ambiguity brimming with fruit, Arlo Parks' character shines through with all the dreamy exuberance of her 25 years, born of a joy that has finally found its rightful place. We're blossomin', she insists in the closing "Floette": and who's to say this flourishing can't happen under the lights of a club?

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15/04/2026