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Artist News Gigs & Festivals Releases
Arlo Parks announces second album My Soft Machine
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 19 January 2023
Arlo Parks has announced that she will release her second album ‘My Soft Machine’ later this year. First single ‘Weightless’ is out now.
“’Weightless’ surrounds the painful experience of caring deeply about someone who only gives you tiny breadcrumbs of affection”, she says. “It’s about suddenly realising that a person has dulled your edges and embarking on the slow journey back to being a brighter version of yourself”.
“The world [and] our view of it is peppered by the biggest things we experience – our traumas, upbringing, vulnerabilities – almost like visual snow”, she goes on, turning to the themes of the album more widely.
“This record is life through my lens, through my body – the mid 20s anxiety, the substance abuse of friends around me, the viscera of being in love for the first time, navigating PTSD and grief and self sabotage and joy, moving through worlds with wonder and sensitivity – what it’s like to be trapped in this particular body”.
“There is a quote from a Joanna Hogg film called ‘The Souvenir’”, she adds, explaining the new album’s title. “It’s a semi-autobiographical film with Tilda Swinton – it recounts a young film student falling in love with an older, charismatic man [and] then being drawn into his addiction”.
“In an early scene he’s explaining why people watch films: ‘We don’t want to see life as it is played out, we want to see life as it is experienced in this soft machine’. So there we have it, the record is called… ‘My Soft Machine’”.
The album is set for release on 26 May, and Parks has announced that she will play Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre on 5 Sep and the Hammersmith Apollo in London on 28 Sep. Watch the video for ‘Weightless’ here:
