Singer-songwriter Arlo Parks has announced her second album, My Soft Machine. The follow-up to 2021’s Grammy-nominated, Mercury Prize-winning Collapsed in Sunbeams will be released on Friday, 26th May via Transgressive Records.
To coincide with My Soft Machine‘s announcement, Parks has shared lead single ‘Weightless’, which “surrounds the painful experience of caring deeply about someone who only gives you tiny breadcrumbs of affection,” according to a statement. “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.”
Arlo Parks – ‘Weightless’
“The world [and] our view of it is peppered by the biggest things we experience – our traumas, upbringing, vulnerabilities almost like visual snow,” Parks said in a video released alongside the album’s announcement.
“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.”
Parks went on to quote Tom Burke’s character from Joanna Hogg’s 2019 film The Souvenir. “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.”
Among the 12 tracks on My Soft Machine, one – ‘Pegasus’ – will feature Phoebe Bridgers. Parks and Bridgers previously teamed up in 2020, covering Radiohead‘s ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ for BBC Radio 1.
Further Reading
The National Announce New Album Featuring Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens
