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May 10, 2023 By Mark Redfern

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

Parks had this to say about about the song in a press release: “‘Pegasus’ is about experiencing the warmth and lightness of good love for the first time. It also explores how the absence of chaos and the presence of real connection can be a little bit terrifying after a long time of not having it.”

Bedroom at Compulsory Film directed the song’s video, which doesn’t feature Bridgers. Parks had this to says about the video: “The desert landscape has always had a special place in my heart, the scorched land, the dust, the sense of absence. Films like Gerry, My Own Private Idaho, and Paris, Texas all use the desert as its own character representing isolation, nostalgia and the journey to a place outside of yourself. Bedroom did an incredible job of meshing surreal dreamscapes with real intimacy to make one of my favorite music videos I’ve ever made.”

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. Then she shared its third single, “Blades,” also 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.

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.

Bridgers recently released the record, the debut album by boygenius, the supergroup also featuring Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. Bridgers’ last solo album was Punisher, which landed her on the cover of our print magazine and topped our Top 100 Albums of 2020 list.

Arlo Parks Tour Dates:

5/24 - Kingston, UK @ Pryzm w/ Banquet Records (intimate outstore performance, early show - 5pm)
5/24 - Kingston, UK @ Pryzm 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)*
6/14 - Leeds, UK – The Wardrobe w/ Crash Records (intimate outstore performance)*
6/14 - Leeds, UK – The Wardrobe w/ Crash Records (intimate outstore performance, late show – 9pm)*
7/5 – Tokyo, Japan @ Ebisu Garden Hall*
7/6 – Osaka, Japan @ Umeda Club Quattro
7/8 – Seoul, South Korea @ Musinsa Garage
7/14 - New Plymouth, New Zealand @ Night Light Festival
7/17 - Melbourne, Australia @ Forum
7/20 - Sydney, Australia @ Sydney Opera House
7/22 - Byron Bay, Australia @ Splendour In The Grass
7/23 - Adelaide, Australia @ The Gov
7/25 - Perth, Australia @ Astor Theatre
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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