Arlo Parks Releases New Single ‘Impurities’
RLO PARKS SHARES LATEST SINGLE ‘IMPURITIES’
FROM HER NEW ALBUM ‘MY SOFT MACHINE‘
OUT 26TH MAY ON TRANSGRESSIVE RECORDS
Photo credit: Alexandra Waespi
“A colossal talent” – Vogue
“Parks achieves an emotional resonance that’s unflinchingly sincere” – Rolling Stone
“No wonder she is being talked about as one of the voices of her generation” – The Times
“A sunny, spacious record fizzing with the promise of new love” – The Guardian
Twice Grammy-nominated, Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning artist Arlo Parks has today shared a new single from her second album My Soft Machine, with ‘Impurities’; a tuneful and textured track written about community – in her words, “it’s about being around people who make you feel like your inner ugliness and failures and mistakes don’t matter, who lift you up and make you laugh, who make you feel good and clean.”
The production on this single was a collaboration between Arlo, Romil Hemnani from Brockhampton and Carter Lang (SZA) and was inspired by nights listening to The Beatles and SZA, as well as her love for ambient music and atmosphere.
‘Impurities’ was given its first spin on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music 1 show today, alongside a New Music Daily interview with Arlo. It follows her recent single ‘Weightless’, which featured across both BBC Radio 1 and 6 Music’s A Lists concurrently and saw Arlo featured on the cover of The Guardian Film & Music. The song received further support from Observer, The Independent, Rolling Stone, HUNGER, NME, Clash, DORK, DIY and others. Both singles appear on the forthcoming album, due 26th May on Transgressive Records.
Accompanying the single is a Jak Payne-directed video, which sees Arlo spotlighted in familiar settings, whilst the camera delicately pans the moving picture. Parks explains, “with this visualiser I really wanted to convey this atmospheric oscillation between solitude and companionship – I wanted to show how being around your people really does feel like coming home. When I was writing this song I had been thinking about Gus Van Sant a lot and how he captures people in all their fragility and beauty and ugliness – Jak was instrumental in creating/protecting that sense of softness.”
My Soft Machine is a deeply personal body of work; a narration of Parks’ experiences as she navigates her 20’s and the growth intertwined. It was recorded between London and Los Angeles, with the producers Paul Epworth, Ariel Rechtshaid, Romil Hemnani (Brockhampton), Frank Ocean-collaborator Buddy Ross and Carter Lang (SZA) – as well as some self-production from Arlo herself.
Explained ever-articulately in her own words below, you can also watch this beautiful performance video to learn more about the coming record and the themes within.
“The world/our view of it is peppered by the biggest things we experience – our traumas, upbringing, vulnerabilities almost like visual snow. 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, it’s an A24 semi-autobiographical film with Tilda Swinton – it recounts a young film student falling in love with an older, charismatic man as a young film student 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.” – Arlo Parks
My Soft Machine artwork
Arlo Parks recently announced she will embark on a run of headline tour dates across the UK and Europe for September, which includes a show at London’s Eventim Apollo. Additionally, she will headline the BBC 6 Music Festival in Manchester on 26th March, which will be the first time she’ll play songs from the new record live. The tour follows Arlo’s performances alongside Harry Styles at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Billie Eilish at The O2 London, Florence & The Machine in Canada, and Clairo across her North American tour. Full worldwide date listings as they stand as follows:
March 26 – Manchester, UK @ Victoria Warehouse (6 Music Festival headline)
July 5 – Tokyo, Japan @ Ebisu Garden Hall
July 6 – Osaka, Japan @ Umeda Club Quattro
July 8 – Seoul, South Korea @ Musinsa Garage
Aug 5 – Oxfordshire, UK @ Wilderness Festival
Aug 26 – Reading, UK @ Reading Festival
Aug 27 – Leeds, UK @ Leeds Festival
Sept 5 – Dublin, Ireland @ 3Olympia Theatre
Sept 14 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
Sept 15 – Brussels, Belgium @ Ancienne Belgique
Sept 17 – Berlin, Germany @ Huxley’s Neue Welt
Sept 19 – Milan, Italy @ Alcatraz
Sept 21 – Paris, France @ L’Olympia
Sept 28 – London, UK @ Eventim Apollo
My Soft Machine will be the follow-up to Arlo’s critically-acclaimed and award-winning debut Collapsed in Sunbeams; a record which received two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album, won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist, received the Hyundai Mercury Prize, and won the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award. Her debut album also reached the top 3 on the UK Album Charts and won the AIM Awards for Best Independent Album and UK Independent Breakthrough. On top of all this, Arlo was also nominated for Breakthrough International Act at the BET Awards, was named as the youngest ever high-profile supporter of UNICEF and an ambassador for the British mental health charity, CALM. She has plans to continue her extensive work with both charities into 2023.
Along with the towering awards garnered last year, Arlo’s debut album was included on almost every ‘Best Albums of 2021’ list and received critical acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, Rolling Stone, NME, The FADER and many more. Arlo performed singles from her debut album on Later…With Jools Holland and The Graham Norton Show in the UK. She also performed on Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, James Corden, CBS This Morning: Saturday, and Ellen DeGeneres in the US.
Her songwriting has seen her gain new fans in Billie Eilish, Florence Welch, Michelle Obama, Angel Olsen, Phoebe Bridgers, Massive Attack and renowned writer Zadie Smith, amongst many others.
‘Impurities’ + ‘Weightless’ – out now via Transgressive Records
My Soft Machine – coming 26th May – pre-order/save here
Arlo Parks
My Soft Machine
26th May 2023
1.Bruiseless
2.Impurities
3.Devotion
4.Blades
5.Purple Phase
6.Weightless
7.Pegasus ft. Phoebe Bridgers
8.Dog Rose
9.Puppy
10.I’m Sorry
11.Room (red wings)
12.Ghost
Arlo Parks on: