walking upstream…
Arlo Parks
photo: samuelwren98 · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Arlo Parks
sourcesWikipedia · Atwood Magazine · The Creative Independent · FRONTRUNNER · Songfacts
Arlo Parks was born Anaïs Marinho in Hammersmith, west London, and started writing poetry years before she started singing it — a habit that still shapes every song, each one drafted first as ten uninterrupted minutes of stream-of-consciousness before being cut down into verse. She took her stage name from two artists she idolized as a teenager, King Krule and Frank Ocean, and released her debut single 'Cola' in 2018 while still at school. Her 2021 debut album 'Collapsed in Sunbeams' turned diaristic, plainspoken observations about friends, heartbreak and mental health into hushed, jazz-tinged bedroom pop, winning the Mercury Prize and the Brit Award for Best New Artist. She followed it with 'My Soft Machine' (2023) and the poetry collection 'The Magic Border.'
the sound in question
2020
CarolineArlo Parks
walk the tributaries ↓
King Krule2010s · Post-punk / Jazz fusion / Trip hop / Hip hop
Parks has said King Krule was 'the first person that kind of bridged those two worlds' of poetry and music for her, since his debut arrived when she was thirteen: 'he's an icon in London, and I just really liked how gritty his lyrics were.' Discovering that his songwriting grew out of poetry was, in her telling, what first made the leap from page to song feel possible — and it's part of why she later built her own stage name out of his. It shows up less as a specific sound than as permission: blunt, unglamorous imagery and a speak-sung delivery laid over spare, smoky arrangements, trusting a plain sentence to carry the weight.
listen: upstream & here
2013
Baby BlueKing Krule
2018
ColaArlo Parks
listen forPlay 'Baby Blue' next to 'Cola' — both let a plainspoken, almost muttered vocal sit right up against slow, jazzy guitar chords and vinyl-warm crackle, the words doing far more work than any hook.
Radiohead1990s · Art rock / Alternative rock
Parks has repeatedly named Radiohead among her formative influences, telling interviewers she kept returning to their catalogue — 'In Rainbows' especially — for 'the way that they use space,' and separately singling out 'A Moon Shaped Pool' and 'Kid A' as records she went back into while writing. Writing 'Black Dog,' she has said she was listening to 'In Rainbows' heavily; the song's stripped-back, almost motionless arrangement, giving the lyric room to sit in silence, is the clearest trace of that listening.
listen: upstream & here
2007
ReckonerRadiohead
2020
Black DogArlo Parks
listen forSet 'Reckoner' beside 'Black Dog' — both let a simple, repeating guitar figure hang in a lot of open air, refusing to fill the space, so a hushed, private vocal becomes the whole point of the song.
Erykah Badu1990s · Neo soul / R&B
Parks has said she kept 'Mama's Gun' on rotation and, discussing D'Angelo, De La Soul and Erykah Badu together, that 'the way that they flow in their music was really inspiring to me.' That's less about vocal range than cadence: a loose, unhurried phrasing that sits slightly behind the beat rather than chasing it, letting a lyric feel spoken even when it's sung.
listen: upstream & here
2000
Didn't Cha KnowErykah Badu
2021
Too GoodArlo Parks
listen forCompare 'Didn't Cha Know' with 'Too Good' — both ride a warm, jazz-chorded neo-soul groove where the vocal leans back into the pocket, phrasing lines like conversation rather than performance.