Gig review: Arlo Parks at The Wardrobe, Leeds

Born from her immersion in New York’s nightclubs, Arlo Parks’ third album replaces acoustic guitars with beats. This shift carries through to the Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning musician’s launch show, staged in partnership with Crash Records, where a live band is swapped for a set of decks and occasional guitarist.

Performing Ambiguous Desire in full for the first time since its release, she re-sequences the track listing to conjure the arc of a messy night out. It’s a place where friends are “out the back, bein’ sick” during the mid-tempo pop of ‘Blue Disco’, or where they can be found “watching Kelly [Lee Owens] spin plates” on The xx, big drop influenced ‘Heaven’.

These specific, conversational lyrics offer a thread of continuity to her earlier work, as does her pillowy delivery. The laidback, post trip-hop ‘What If I Say It?’ and ‘South Seconds’ also have the comfort of familiarity for anyone who’s followed her since 2021 debut Collapsed In Sunbeams. She nonetheless seems happiest when “experimenting and trying new things” rather than re-treading past sounds.

The experimentation frequently sees her behind the decks – all cropped red hair and outsize Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt – most notably on the house-adjacent ‘Jetta’, mixed live with chopped vocal fragments. Other highlights include the post-club melancholy of ‘Senses’, a duet with Sampha (“he sounds like a cello”), and ‘New Desire’, built around a voice-note from photographer Dannah Gottlieb (a YouTube only between-albums release).

Yet for all the lyrical emphasis on human connection, and Parks’ own admission that she’s missed playing intimate venues, the performance is surprisingly reserved. Aside from when she briefly steps into the front row during the carefree 80s electronica of ‘2SIDED’, the show hovers ambiguously between listening party and DJ set. It’s a format that undersells the album, while still offering a unique launch experience.