Arlo Parks at Brixton Academy

Days before her highly anticipated Apple Music Hall performance, Arlo Parks brings her Desire Tour to Brixton Academy, a venue she says has been long overdue. Parks is such a unique artist, blending genres with a tour de force of passion, the soft beats of neo-soul mixed with the pumping bass of electronica. This show is a magnificent performance that ties it all together.

The stage setup is simple but effective. Three sets of keys mirror the production centrepiece, a table lit up and flickering with soundboards and synthesisers. Excitement bubbles as a voicemail plays overhead, Parks onstage with her eyes honed on her instrument. In the first song, Heaven, her voice is light and soft, but cuts through to every listener, just as the music builds to reach each corner. Strobe lights beam, the vocoder pulses and the floor is already writhing, the mix of soul and synth bringing the crowd together. “This room is yours as much as it is mine,” she shouts, and it couldn’t feel more true. Jetta is melodic and catches the ear with its chorus while visuals of a late-night drive light up behind her. The three musicians – Parks, her Musical Director Sam and her support artist Baird – meet at the altar in the middle, playing with the track, joyful in their creation.

Throughout, Parks’s voice ripples with care and emotion. It soars on upbeat tracks like Purple Phase and draws us in with the spoken word of Blades. In Black Dog, a song dedicated to anyone who feels like giving up, she is at her most vulnerable. Under a bright spotlight, she lets the words wash over her. To go from the rawness of this to the shuddering bass break in Floette highlights her range and the talent it takes to experiment.

Big cheers erupt as Eugene plays, clearly a fan favourite; the floor is a party, fans feeding off the energy Parks brings to the stage. Caroline is the loudest number of the night, igniting something special that makes the walls vibrate.

Parks has never shied away from staying true to herself and the music she wants to create. The Desire Tour is the beautiful result of that. It has dreamy vocals and intense production, but the human connection is never lost. As Get Go floods the venue, the crowd ignites, not yet ready to leave into the night.

Talitha Stowell
Photos: Paul Boyling

For further information and future events, visit Arlo Parks’s website here.

Watch the video for Floette here: