Arlo Parks is one of the most important indie acts right now. She received two Grammy nominations at age 21 in 2021. That same year, she won the 2021 Mercury Prize for her debut album Collapsed In Sunbeams. It’s safe to say her sophomore album is highly anticipated. My Soft Machine was announced in January and there’ve been many previews of it since then. Check out key details about the record below to prepare.
Release Date
My Soft Machine is out 5/26 via Transgressive. Find more information here.
Tracklist
Along with the announcement of the LP, Parks unveiled the 12-song tracklist. See it below.
1. “Bruiseless”
2. “Impurities”
3. “Devotion”
4. “Blades”
5. “Purple Phase”
6. “Weightless”
7. “Pegasus” Feat. Phoebe Bridgers
8. “Dog Rose”
9. “Puppy”
10. “I’m Sorry”
11. “Room (Red Wings)”
12. “Ghost”
Features
The only feature on this album is quite a memorable one: Phoebe Bridgers on the track “Pegasus,” which is out now as a single.
Singles
There are four singles out now: “Weightless,” “Impurities,” “Blades,” and “Pegasus” with Phoebe Bridgers. About the latter, Parks explained on Instagram, “This song is about the purity and rarity of true love, that feeling of solidity, of finding a real home in another human being, of wanting to be better with/for someone but being held as you are.” She added, “The video captures that frenetic joy and energy – the barren backdrop of the desert, finding relief and color after a long time of being alone.”
More Details
Parks shared a lengthy statement about what went into the making of My Soft Machine:
“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 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… My Soft Machine.”
