Few artists are able to paint a genuine picture of the excitement and uncertainty that often accompany young adulthood and queerness. But on Friday, acclaimed British singer-songwriter Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho, who goes by the name Arlo Parks, did just that with her third studio album, “Ambiguous Desire.” The 12-track indie-alternative record captures the freedom and escapism of city nightlife.
In an interview with BBC, Parks said the inspiration for the album emerged from her experience comforting a stranger she met in a nightclub on a New York summer night. Parks noticed one girl’s distress and was drawn into her friend group’s gossip. When they ultimately decided the girl was “better off without” the man causing the concern, the band of unexpected friends celebrated the decision by dancing together in the club.
This city-night-life energy is epitomized in the album’s third track, “Get Go.” The song and its music video are electric in its sensuality. The song captures a fleeting moment as well as a transcendent feeling, one accentuated by the perfectly hazy music video featuring Parks singing in a dark, smoky room as people party around her.
In the song, Parks paints a picture of the club scene through a combination of words and instrumentals: “I’m movin’ under strobes on the floor / Maria standin’ there, holdin’ both her heels / Sequins on her jeans / Yeah, she looks unreal.”
Maria appears to be a love interest stuck beneath a layer of uncertainty and anxiety. Like “Get Go,” the rest of the album, which ventures even further into the world of experimental pop, is captivatingly vague, capturing the feeling of sleep-deprived, drunken partying amid blissfully sweltering heat.
The album, from start to finish, is a beautiful ode to self-exploration as the artist finds out who she wants to be. In the album’s closing track, “Floette,” Parks repeatedly sings, “We’re blossomin’.”
In the album’s press release, Parks shares that “Floette,” was actually the first song she wrote for the record. “It’s a really joyful testament to queerness and blossoming into yourself,” she said. “Healing isn’t linear and the entire album is a documentation of that growing process.”
This sense of self acceptance and vulnerability, while characteristic of Parks’s other music, is especially evident in this album. For example “2SIDED” features lyrics like “therе’s a sadness that I really can’t shake / But my vision’s got a few stripes / I never really feel at home anywhere / It’s the right place at the wrong time,” juxtaposed with heavy, energetic instrumentals.
It is rare to find an album with a title as apt as “Ambiguous Desire.” Those two words perfectly encapsulate the fleeting and hazy nature of night out. In “Nightswimming,” Parks does not start singing until well into the song, allowing listeners to adjust to the sensual beat before she sings, “I got this desire in me / I just wanna leave it all to yesterday, yeah.” In only around four minutes, Parks conveys the opacity of a “moment in time,” she sings.
The album does, at times, feel somewhat repetitive in its tempo and production, but this detracts only slightly from the overall listening experience. Any lingering sense of incompleteness feels almost deliberate, which is especially seen in the closing track, “Floette.” In refusing to provide the listener with a resolution, the track ends the album, then, on a note of uncertainty: one of ambiguous desire.
Talia LeVine is a section editor covering arts and culture. They study Political Science and Visual Art with a focus on photography. In their free time, they can be found drinking copious amounts of coffee.
