STACK #223 May 2023

MUSIC FEATURE

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ARLO PARKS Collapsed in Sunbeams

This month we’re Lifting the Lid on the astounding 2021 debut fromArlo Parks, as the English artist preps her sophomore sonic offering My Soft Machine , out later this month viaTransgressive/PIAS. Words Bryget Chrisfield

Airbnb success stories Collapsed In Sunbeams – which effortlessly navigates topics such as depression, sexual identity and body image – was created during a three-week stretch when Arlo and her co writer/producer Gianluca Buccellati holed up in an Airbnb in the East London borough of Angel during the pandemic. “The idea behind the album was just kind of discovering and processing things in my life that have shaped me up till now,” Arlo has said of making Collapsed in Sunbeams. “I wanted it to be a kind of time capsule of my adolescence.” Dear Diary… Like many of us (ahem!), Arlo unearthed some old journals during lockdown. “[They] sparked my creativity in terms of exploring the conversations and the situations that made In 2018, Arlo Parks (born Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho, in Paris) uploaded some demos to the BBC’s Introducing site, hoping to be discovered. Fast forward around five years and the so-hot-right-now British singer-songwriter, musician and poet has toured supporting the likes of Billie Eilish and Harry Styles, while also selling out her own headline shows the world over. Aged just 22, she’s already played Glasto three times (if you include 2020’s virtual experience). Arlo has dropped two EPs so far – Super Sad Generation and Sophie (both in 2019) – plus her Mercury Prize-winning debut record Collapsed in Sunbeams (2021), which takes its title from Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty. Album number two, My Soft Machine , is scheduled to drop on May 26 (pre order alert!), so it’s high time you got up to speed on all things Arlo.

Credit: Alexandra Waespi

Battling that black dog Arlo is a proud ambassador for the charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), which is particularly apt given her popular song Black Dog ’s intended purpose: “It’s supposed to make people who are struggling [with depression] feel less isolated, and start a conversation surrounding the prevalence of mental health issues in today’s world,” Arlo has said of the track. Towards the end of last year, Arlo cancelled some US tour dates; she has since called for increased support surrounding the mental health of artists. Check out Arlo’s wise words: “We take holidays as a reward, rather than building rest into our routines as something consistent. And I think that it takes a lot, especially when you’re public-facing, to know yourself enough to be like, “Okay, I need to step back from this’...”

me who I am today,” she’s since admitted. One entry even strengthened her resolve, with Arlo sharing during an interview: “I found one from when I was 13 and it said: ‘I want to make music because I want to help people.’” Namechecking within song Namechecking fave artists/influences within lyrics has become a bit of a Parks trademark: during Cola she mentions Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance), Robert Smith is referenced in Black Dog , and Jai Paul is namechecked in Hurt. “I’m a music lover before an artist,” is how Arlo explains her habit of including audio references within lyrics, “and I feel like music soundtracks all of the situations in the stories that I’m talking about. So I think that it helps me to build a more holistic picture of the situation that I’m talking about… It’s like describing a scene from a movie, and I want people to see and experience the situation exactly as I did, because I feel like it adds that other dimension.”

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54 MAY 2023

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