Ambiguous Desire finds Arlo Parks stepping further into her own world, one shaped as much by late-night movement as by the quiet clarity that follows it. Drawn from club floors in Los Angeles, New York, and London, the album pulls its energy from spaces where identity loosens and instinct takes over, where Parks could disappear into the crowd and come back with something sharper, more defined.

That sense of motion runs through all 12 tracks. “Get Go” leans into breakbeats and the pull of the night, while “Beams” slows things down, tracing the aftershocks of a relationship that left its mark. “Senses,” featuring Sampha, moves with a quiet intensity, circling the push and pull of destructive connection, while “Floette” opens into something lighter, a moment of release that celebrates queerness without hesitation. Elsewhere, “Heaven” rides a heavy, physical bassline, and “Nightswimming” taps into UK garage rhythms, framing intimacy in motion rather than stillness.

Working closely with producer Baird in New York, Parks traded traditional band setups for modular synths and digital tools. Days were spent in a downtown loft, nights out in clubs and community spaces, with the two feeding off a shared language of films, books, and music until the ideas came faster and with less second-guessing. That looseness carries through the album, giving it a sense of immediacy without sacrificing detail.

The influences are wide but never distracting. There are echoes of Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage, the UK pulse of Burial and the Streets, and the rhythmic insistence of LCD Soundsystem and Theo Parrish. Parks filters it all through her own writing, which remains direct and instinctive, grounded in lived experience rather than reference points.

Since her debut, Parks has built a reputation on emotional clarity, from Collapsed in Sunbeams through My Soft Machine. Here, she expands that foundation without losing it. The writing is still personal, still searching, but it moves differently, less inward, more in step with the world around it.

“My writing is instinctual and music has always been the place I go to when I need to work things out with myself,” she says. “It’s scary to be true to yourself as an artist but every time I get braver and it’s made every track on this album essential.”

That idea lands most clearly on “Floette,” which closes the album with a sense of arrival that feels earned rather than declared. Parks frames it as a moment of growth, tied to identity and acceptance, but also as part of a larger process. Healing, she suggests, doesn’t move in straight lines, and neither does this record.

With additional production from Paul Epworth, Buddy Ross, and Andrew Sarlo, Ambiguous Desire captures Parks at a point where experimentation and confidence meet. It’s a record built from movement, from nights that stretch into mornings, from the freedom of stepping outside yourself and returning with something new.