For the follow-up to her gentle and intimate award-winning debut album, singer-songwriter Arlo Parks says she will pay tribute to rock groups such as My Bloody Valentine and Fontaines DC.
As she concluded the BBC 6 Music Festival, Parks performed a few pieces from her new album, My Soft Machine.
She was also joined on stage by Fontaine’s DC drummer Tom Coll for her 2019 hit Sophie, which reached a boisterous crescendo, and by Romy Madley Croft of fellow Mercury winners The xx for a duet on 2020’s Black Dog.
Collapsed in Sunbeams is renowned for its dreamy soul-pop style, which earned Parks the coveted Mercury Award in 2021.
This album may have had an emotional impact, but she told Matt Everitt of 6 Music that she has long been a fan of harsher music.
This has always been the case, but it has never really manifested itself in my music, said the London-born musician.
“One of my favorite bands is My Bloody Valentine, and I’ve infused My Soft Machine with a few more of their moments.”
She commended the celebrated and notoriously raucous band for their “feeling of pure pandemonium, and you feel like your ears are coming off, but the songs are so delicate.”
She continued,
“Alongside this wall of music, they’re incredibly sensual and sensitive.”
Future live performances by Parks will be “far more robust” than early in her career, she assured, with the intention of producing “a wall of music, when perhaps before there was a sense of minimalism.”
She added:
“Sincerely, I believe I contribute significantly more enthusiasm. I believe there are fewer solemn moments. I believe it has more vigor and grit.”
Parks was supported by a full band on Sunday’s closing night of the 6 Music Festival in Manchester. Their sound was occasionally aggressive, but it was still a far cry from My Bloody Valentine’s auditory assault.
The singer also declared herself to be a “huge fan” of Ireland’s Fontaines DC, whose third album Skinty Fia debuted at number one in the United Kingdom and earned them the Brit Award for the best foreign group this year.
“I wanted Tom to play drums on a song that I modified to have a stronger feel,” Parks explained of his guest appearance at Sunday’s concert.
“I’m a huge fan of Deftones, I listen to a lot of noisy music and energetic music, and Skinty Fia had a significant impact on my album.”
The title of My Soft Machine is derived from a sentence in Joanna Hogg’s 2019 film The Souvenir, in which the word is used to describe the human body.
It was recorded in London and Los Angeles, with Parks’ stay in California inspiring her to compose “songs that were little outside the realm of what I’ve done before,” as she explained.
“I felt as though I were on an adventure. I felt that there were no limitations on the type of music I could create because I was in a new environment. Thus, I believe that these instances were perhaps a bit more wild and liberated.”
She added:
“This record was considerably more collaborative. It felt like I was facing outwards a great deal more than in the first game, which was a more insular approach.”
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