Parks ventures out; Stuart merges past and present
Arlo Parks “My Soft Machine” (Transgressive)
Britpop artist Arlo Parks approaches her work as a poet, laying incisive lyrics over a murkily cozy lo-fi hip-hop.
On her second album, “My Soft Machine,” Parks balances childlike wonder with personal trauma and disappointment. The opening track, “Bruiseless,” sets the mood expertly with the line, “I just wish that my eyes were still wide.”
Since the release of her 2018 single, “Cola,” Parks has produced a steady stream of stories told with disarming warmth and honesty. Her debut album, “Collapsed in Sunbeams,” composed during quarantine, is a striking document of time spent inside her room and her mind. On the new release, she retains her inviting, catchy vibe but starts to venture outside both thematically and musically.
In interviews, Park says she has come to know exactly what she wants. On “My Soft Machine,” Parks stays true to her DIY foundations, but, as a producer on the recording, she has expanded her sound. The exploration taps a broad range of influences — musicians such as Portishead, Elliott Smith and Joni Mitchell, as well as a precise focus on mood inspired by visual artists such as photographer Nan Goldin and filmmaker David Lynch.
Overall, Parks offers a lusher sound than on past recordings. The vocals at times skirt the edge of overproduction, but her unique delivery is preserved by frequent shifts from singing to spoken work. Parks delivers some of the most personal lines by pronouncing them softly and deliberately.
On the third track, “Devotion,” Parks pushes beyond her familiar lo-fi loops into a noisier guitar-driven swirl, even name-checking the Breeders’ Kim Deal in the song. Hot on its heels comes “Blades,” which features an irresistible hook that sounds as though it bounced around the universe for a thousand years before Parks captured it.
The track “Pegasus” features Phoebe Bridgers on supporting vocals. Their voices mesh readily, and the pair repeat the line “I think you’re special ’cause you told me” in what may be the most cautiously optimistic song in either of their respective catalogs. Bridgers has a passionate fan base that is set to explode in her summer tours with Boygenius and Taylor Swift. This collaboration promises to expose Parks to some of that audience stateside.
Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives “Altitude” (Snakefarm)
The geekiest fan would be hard-pressed to match Marty
Stuart’s vast memorabilia collection, which will be displayed as part of his ambitious country music complex being built in his hometown of Philadelphia, Miss.
But Stuart wants to ensure the genre he loves isn’t a mere museum piece. No country artist is better at bringing the past into the present than the Country Music Hall of Famer, who approaches the music with passion, earned authenticity and enormous chops.
“Altitude,” his first album in more than five years, was inspired by the Byrds’ groundbreaking cosmic country of the late 1960s. As such, it sounds like a throwback, but also entirely fresh. The set is an intoxicating mix of guitar reverb and tremolo, bent notes, chiming 12-string and keening harmonies in support of Stuart, whose robust tenor is filled with wit and wisdom.
The 13 original tunes are as vibrant as the colorful suits worn by Stuart’s band, the Fabulous Superlatives, whose
amusingly hyperbolic name is somehow an understatement. Guitarist Kenny Vaughan, drummer Harry Stinson and bassist Chris Scruggs match Stuart’s guitar virtuosity, with thrilling results.
They set the tone with “Lost Byrd Space Train (Scene 1),” a two-minute instrumental opener built on twin guitars, and the celebratory boogie of “Country Star.” “Sitting Alone” echoes not only the Byrds but the Beatles, while “Vegas” summons the ghosts of Gram Parsons and Clarence White.
Stuart occasionally backs off the throttle. He plays sitar and sings about social distancing on the trippy ballad “Space,” while “The Sun Is Quietly Sleeping” pairs twang with a handsome string-section arrangement.
A psychedelic guitar solo elevates the scorcher “Time to Dance,” and then comes a quiet spiritual that begins with the lament, “Woke up hurting,” before angelic harmonies
supply relief. As a country classicist, Stuart finds comfort in Sunday morning as the redeeming encore to Saturday night.
Song of the moment Water From Your Eyes “Everyone’s Crushed” (Matador)
The title track from the Brooklyn art-rock duo Water From Your Eyes’ excellent new album, “Everyone’s Crushed,” is a kind of lyrical Rubik’s Cube, finding Rachel Brown twisting and rearranging a few deadpan phrases until they click into new meanings. “I’m with everyone I love, and everything hurts,” Brown declares, prompting Nate Amos to blurt out a caustic, angular guitar riff. The song makes space for both a collective feeling of generalized malaise and also the relief of sharing it with others: “I’m with everyone I hurt,” Brown concludes, “and everything’s love.”