Arlo Parks Wants You To Dance

On her third studio album, Ambiguous Desire, the South London songwriter embraces the dance floor in all its nocturnal, communal glory.

By Ozioma Nwabuikwu

Published on March 31, 2026

After circling the globe on her last album cycle, Arlo Parks hit a wall. Burnout forced a reckoning. Instead of pushing through, she listened to her body and chose stillness, planting roots in Los Angeles.

LA became a recalibration. She hosted open-door dinners. Took in art. Learned to DJ. Lost herself on dance floors at the city’s sweatiest club nights, including Midnight Lovers at Bar Franca. The immersion pulled her out of her head and back into her body.

What followed wasn’t strategic so much as instinctive: Ambiguous Desire, her third studio album, shaped by nocturnal synths, bass pressure, and the communal architecture of underground scenes.

“I feel like my work has always been a place where I put difficult things, but I was really interested in the idea of just talking about my favourite ever nights and these moments of euphoria and celebration, as much as the difficult moments,” said Parks. “It’s important for people to know that [this music] has always kind of been a part of my DNA.”

The pivot isn’t as abrupt as it sounds. Parks has long been drawn to early 2000s Croydon post-dubstep, James Blake, and Joy Orbison — sounds she absorbed well before this record. Produced primarily with longtime collaborator Baird in his downtown LA loft, Ambiguous Desire moves between on- and off-floor intimacy, holding pleasure and contradiction in the same breath.

“This whole record feels like I’m wanting to get closer to myself and to accept myself and understand myself in the world,” she says.

Three cities thread through the album’s emotional geography: Los Angeles, New York, and London. Each offers a different version of her.

“I think LA feels spacious and full of friends. For me, New York, I feel like an artist, and I feel alive, and I love being able to kind of wander the streets and be in that space. And then London is very much home. It’s where I’m from.”

If there was a rule guiding the record, it was freedom. Parks gave herself time — more than ever before — to obsess over detail.

“I was able to really zone in on micro details, like the quality of a snare drum or the vocal treatment in an outro, and I was able to really sit and chip away at that for a longer time,” she says.

She also resisted familiarity.

“I really kind of tore up the blueprint of what people might expect from an Arlo Parks record.”

The result moves fluidly through techno bass, UK garage, and pirate radio breakbeats. DJing sharpened her sense of sequencing — how energy crests and collapses, how momentum carries meaning beyond lyrics alone.

“I feel like flow is everything, especially because I was DJing a lot more, really bearing in mind the way that the songs flow and also how the story evolves over the course of the record, both sonically and lyrically, because those two things also can be kind of different. So it does take a lot of time to kind of find an order that works.”

Though the album pulses with physicality, it was built in community. Lyrics sparked by friends. Voice notes. Studio sessions. Feedback loops. Collaborations with artists like Sampha — approached with care rather than convenience — and conversations with peers including Lucy Dacus.

“Being surrounded by people who are also on their own little sonic adventures is really inspiring,” she says. “It’s important when you collaborate for it to be really intentional. I want it to be with somebody who I know really deeply and where there’s that mutual respect.

“I think that when you have good people around you who are kind of reminding you to trust yourself and push yourself, and who are also, you know, sharing music and films and records with you. It’s just a really nourishing environment.”

To make a record about presence, Parks had to practise it. That discipline — routines, meditation, what she calls “slow culture” — keeps her from spiralling into the next milestone before living inside the current one.

“It’s a constant battle to not always be thinking about the next thing,” she confesses.

As another album cycle and tour loom, she’s focused less on momentum and more on longevity.

“I’m on the way to understanding how to be better as a writer and as a friend and as a partner. But, you know, even on a career level, I’ve always wanted to be a career artist. I want to be writing records until the end. So I feel like I’m just constantly moving in the direction of figuring out what my next step is going to be creatively.”

Ultimately, Ambiguous Desire isn’t just a sonic shift. It’s a document of where she stands right now — grounded, curious, willing to move her body again.

“I hope that it makes people feel like they can embrace freedom in their own life and maybe take more risks when it comes to chasing whatever dreams they have. And I hope that it makes them feel seen. And I hope the songs are songs that they’ll share with loved ones and their crushes and their family. I just want it to be something that embeds itself into people’s lives.”