Arlo Parks explores love and intimacy in “My Soft Machine”
Over the last few years, English singer-songwriter Arlo Parks blew up very quickly in the indie music world, winning a Mercury prize for her first album, Collapsed In Sunbeams. Parks returns with her sophomore album, My Soft Machine, providing a look into her perspective on different kinds of love.
My Soft Machine begins with Bruiseless, a spoken track about missing innocence and childhood. While the track is short, only one verse, Parks aptly describes growing pains with the line, “I just wish I was seven and blameless.” This song felt almost like poetry, with Parks’ tragically soft prose against a solid rhythmic backtrack.
Next on the album is the catchy, synth-filled Impurities. Parks sings about having real, good friends who lift you up. In her unique, melodic voice, Parks demonstrates that intimacy comes in many forms, not just romance. She sings, “I radiate like a star/When you embrace all my impurities/And I feel clean again.” Unusual for Parks, whose songs are typically devastating, Impurities is a blissful, sun-soaked love letter to friendship.
Devotion is a definite highlight of the album, a rocking love song. The song comes to an apex when the smooth, sultry bass that flows throughout the song is suddenly replaced with a hard guitar solo, as Parks repeats, “All yours, baby, flood me with your nervous love.” In a way that’s reminiscent of beabadoobee and Men I Trust, Parks tries something new by blending her soft voice with hardcore rock, and it works perfectly.
Parks experiments further in Blades, her most upbeat, danceable song yet. Throughout the album, Parks has several spoken bridges, where the music slows down in an R&B, Tyler the Creator-esque way. Blades is no different as Parks speaks of secretly pining for a friend with the line, “You laugh the same/Hand on mouth cause you hate your teeth/And I love your teeth/And I'm scared to speak.”
Parks clearly captures the feeling of being so in love with someone that it aches in the song, Dog Rose. While it is relatively upbeat, the listeners’ hearts hurt for Parks as she sings, “And I keep getting pangs when I look up/Seeing you there doing dishes for your step mum.” The crush-induced infatuation and intoxication are tangible.
Two gods of the indie genre combine forces in Pegasus, a mellow track featuring Phoebe Bridgers. This track is the most intimate on the record, about truly pure love. It’s warm, slow, and beautiful, as Bridgers provides clear backup vocals and Parks drops perfectly domestic lines like, “You’re making sure I'm eating/I call my mother just to tell her that I'm happy.”
In the tracks, I’m Sorry and Room (red wings), Parks chooses to isolate herself for fear of being hurt again. After being hurt in a past relationship, she sings, “I’m solo to keep me from harm.” However, by the end of the album, Parks has begun to heal. The closing track, Ghost, discusses learning to let people in and trust again. Parks attempts to break down her walls and accept help, but she’s afraid to seem weak.
As Parks experiments with new styles throughout My Soft Machine, the themes of love stay abundantly in focus. Whether she is singing of puppy love, one-sided yearning, true friendship, blood bonds, or a toxic relationship she can’t leave, Parks shows her listeners a new view on intimacy.
(Cover photo by Alex Kurunis)