She wants her private life to stay that way. In packing her record with snippets from their life, Parks know she is walking a line. The internet certainly regards them in that light. Parks and Ashnikko are both celebrities, after a fashion. After the fact, I have to think about how much of our relationship I want the share.” “When I make music, I can’t filter myself about the things that are moving me. The tune is a warm-to-the-touch mix of Christopher Cross-style early 1980s “yacht rock” and Billie Eilish-esque bedroom pop, which contains the singer’s “happiest ever” chorus of: “I just don’t know what to do/’Cause I only want to be with you.” And she’s there when Parks tries to paper over a row on Blades. She and Parks share a loved-up drive through the mountains on Impurities (“Piling in the Escalade/ my chest is buzzing light me”). Since winning the Mercury Music Prize for Collapsed In Sunbeams, she has relocated to California and started a relationship with North Carolina-born rapper Ashton Casey, aka Ashnikko.Īshnikko’s presence can be felt across My Soft Machine. The same hot-knife honesty is once again front and centre with My Soft Machine. The excess is acknowledged – “When did we get so skinny?/ Start doin’ ketamine on weekends” – but Parks also quietly mourns what is lost when you grow up and have to take life seriously. Another formative number, Super Sad Generation, looks back wistfully on a misspent adolescence. “Let’s go to the corner store and buy some fruit/ I would do anything to get you out your room,” she sang, the conversational lyrics contrasting with the dark subject matter. One of her earliest releases, Black Dog, was about helping a friend cope with depression. That gorgeous melancholy has been part of her toolkit from the outset. Those lines, from her recent single Impurities, may not sound especially devastating on paper however, delivered in Park’s dreamy coo and framed by lilting electro-pop, they’re devastating. You think you’re passing the time with throwaway pop – and then you pay attention to lyrics such as “don’t hide the bruise/ I know it’s hard to be alive sometimes”.
Parks has a sweet and unthreatening singing voice and for that reason, her songs can be deceptive. The song, released when she was still at school, was an unflinching meditation on romantic betrayal, which she introduced to the world with the statement: “I’m a black kid who can’t dance for sh**, listens to emo music and currently has a crush on some girl in my Spanish class.” She has communicated from the heart since her debut single, Cola in 2019. It’s a quality you will recognise from her music which, framed by soft-focus beats and delicate indie guitar, has the intimate quality of a whispered conversation between friends. Her conversation unfurls with a casual honesty. And as fate would have it, the location was Dublin once again – where she supported Harry Styles for his sell-out at the Aviva Stadium. In June 2022, she played before the biggest crowd of her career to date. It’s funny how life works out, she continues. “There was definitely a deep sadness when we had to cancel everything, though it was obviously completely necessary.” With each show, you weren’t sure what was going to happen,” Parks (22) says, speaking ahead of the release of her second album, My Soft Machine on May 26th. “At the end of the tour, it was definitely this sense of impending doom. She said her goodbyes and stepped into the darkness, not knowing when the light would return. Everyone knew they wouldn’t be doing this again in a hurry. There was a crowd of “around 50″ and while she tried to raise spirits as she unpacked the intimate bedroom pop that later formed the spine of her debut LP, Collapsed In Sunbeams, the feeling in the air was mournful. Would that night’s show go ahead? When would it all come tumbling down? It was March 2020 and, with a pandemic brewing, live music had become a game of hedged bets. Arlo Parks’s last concert before the world ended was at the Grand Social in Dublin.
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