Ahead of the release of her sophomore LP, My Soft Machine, Arlo Parks has shared a new single, “Devotion.” The track is the final tease of the album, out May 26 via Transgressive Records.
“‘Devotion’ to me is a song about feeling so in love it’s almost like being ripped apart, there’s an intensity, a wildness and a tenderness,” Parks explained in a statement. “This is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever made, it draws from the bands that made me fall in love with music from Deftones to Yo La Tengo to Smashing Pumpkins to My Bloody Valentine.”
The official music video for the track, directed by Ali Raymond and Joel Barney, confines Parks and her band to an elevator as they perform. “The music video for ‘Devotion’ had to feel sweaty and nostalgic and loose,” Parks explained. “The surreal bluish hue, the sense of feral joy in the performance, the blur and the band — I wanted to pay homage to ’90s rock music and the notion of loving so hard it almost destroys you.”
My Soft Machine follows the singer’s 2021 Mercury Prize-winning debut, Collapsed in Sunbeams. Recorded between London and Los Angeles, the album features a roster of producers including Paul Epworth, Ariel Rechtshaid, Romil Hemnani, Buddy Ross, Carter Lang, and self-production from Parks herself.
Parks recently spoke to Rolling Stone about her new music, explaining that on her second album she wanted to make sure everyone knew that she was singing about her own lived experiences.
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The first record was attributing a lot of things to characters and to people in my life,” she said. “I wanted to be brave in the sense of being very clear that I was talking about the world through my eyes and my heart — [with] the sense of joy and pain and confusion and real kind of melting pot of emotion coming from me.”
Earlier this month, Parks released a music video for her song “Pegasus,” a duet with Phoebe Bridgers.
