Arlo Parks announces Dublin gig and second album with 'Weightless'

Twice Grammy-nominated, Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning artist Arlo Parks has announced details of her brand-new My Soft Machine UK & European tour, which begins with a show in Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre on 5th September 2023.

The news of the tour comes alongside the announcement of the upcoming release of her long awaited second album, My Soft Machine, due May 26th on Transgressive Records. The poet and musician has revealed the album’s stunning first single ‘Weightless’.

On the single, Parks expresses: “Weightless surrounds the painful experience of caring deeply about someone who only gives you tiny breadcrumbs of affection. It’s about suddenly realising that a person has dulled your edges and embarking on the slow journey back to being a brighter version of yourself.”

Sophomore LP My Soft Machine is a deeply personal body of work; a narration of Parks’ experiences as she navigates her 20s and the growth intertwined.

“The world/our view of it is peppered by the biggest things we experience - our traumas, upbringing, vulnerabilities almost like visual snow," Arlo explains. "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 as a young film student 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, the record is called....My Soft Machine.”

My Soft Machine will be the follow-up to Arlo’s critically-acclaimed and award-winning debut, Collapsed in Sunbeams.

The record received two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album, won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist, received the Hyundai Mercury Prize, and won the BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year Award.

Parks' debut album also reached the top 3 on the UK Album Charts and won the AIM Awards for Best Independent Album and UK Independent Breakthrough. On top of all this, Arlo was also nominated for Breakthrough International Act at the BET Awards, was named as the youngest ever high-profile supporter of UNICEF and an ambassador for the British mental health charity, CALM. The talent has plans to continue her extensive work with both charities into 2023.

Her songwriting has seen her gain new fans in Billie Eilish, Florence Welch, Michelle Obama, Angel Olsen, Phoebe Bridgers, Massive Attack and renowned writer Zadie Smith, amongst many others.

Pre-order My Soft Machine here.

My Soft Machine Tracklist:

1.Bruiseless
2.Impurities
3.Devotion
4.Blades
5.Purple Phase
6.Weightless
7.Pegasus ft. Phoebe Bridgers
8.Dog Rose
9.Puppy
10.I'm Sorry
11.Room (red wings)
12.Ghost

Date listings:

Sept 5 - Dublin, Ireland @ 3Olympia Theatre
Sept 14 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
Sept 15 - Brussels, Belgium @ Ancienne Belgique
Sept 17 - Berlin, Germany @ Huxley’s Neue Welt
Sept 19 - Milan, Italy @ Alcatraz
Sept 21 - Paris, France @ L'Olympia
Sept 28 - London, UK @ Eventim Apollo