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Apr 19, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Alexandra Waespi

London-based singer Arlo Parks is releasing a new album, My Soft Machine, on May 28 via Transgressive. Now she has shared its third single, “Blades,” via a music video. Watch it below, followed by Parks’ upcoming tour dates.

Paul Epworth produced “Blades.” Parks had this to say about about the song and working with Epworth in a press release: “Paul is just a wizard; he has this childlike spirit that I’ve always really loved and he brought that to ‘Blades.’ I wanted to make something that I can dance to, finally, because I feel like my songs don’t really have that quality in general. So, I took inspiration from bands like ESG, artists like Kaytranada, and a lot of the kind of ’70s Zambian psychedelic rock that I love.”

The song is about trying to rebuild a soured a friendship. Parks explains: “I imagine this moment at a party where you see someone across the room that you haven’t seen in a while, you felt yourself growing apart, and you’re like, should I, should I not? And then you find the courage to approach them. That’s the story of that song.”

Previously Parks shared the album’s first single, “Weightless,” via a music video. “Weightless” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then she shared its second single, “Impurities,” via a music video.

My Soft Machine is the follow-up to Parks’ acclaimed debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, released in January 2021 via Transgressive. That album won the Mercury Prize for the best British album of the year and landed high on our Top 100 Albums of 2021 list. My Soft Machine features Phoebe Bridgers on one song.

Of the new album and its title, Parks had this to say in a previous press release: “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.”

Read our review of Collapsed in Sunbeams here.

Read our interview with Parks about the album here.

Arlo Parks Tour Dates:

5/24 - Kingston, UK @ Prizm w/ Banquet Records (intimate outstore performance)*
5/29 - London, UK @ Rough Trade East, Early Show (in-store performance + signing)*
5/29 - London, UK @ Rough Trade East, Late Show (in-store performance + signing)*
6/3 - Barcelona, Spain @ Primavera Sound
6/8 - Porto, Portugal @ Primavera Sound
6/10 - Madrid, Spain @ Primavera Sound
6/14 - Leeds, UK @ The Wardrobe w/ Crash Records (intimate outstore performance)*
7/5 – Tokyo, Japan @ Ebisu Garden Hall*
7/6 – Osaka, Japan @ Umeda Club Quattro
7/8 – Seoul, South Korea @ Musinsa Garage
8/5 - Oxfordshire, UK @ Wilderness Festival
8/26 - Reading, UK @ Reading Festival
8/27 - Leeds, UK @ Leeds Festival
9/5 - Dublin, Ireland @ 3Olympia Theatre
9/13 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
9/14 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso*
9/15 - Brussels, Belgium @ Ancienne Belgique
9/17 - Berlin, Germany @ Huxleys Neue Welt*
9/19 - Milan, Italy @ Alcatraz
9/21 - Paris, France @ L’Olympia
9/28 - London, UK @ Eventim Apollo
10/1 - Washington, DC @ All Things Go Festival

* = sold out

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