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Arts
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 — 5
Arlo Parks Explores Light and Loss on ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’
If you’ve ever dug up an old diary
and leafed through its pages, it’s
very likely you’ve stumbled upon
some
melodramatic
vignettes
of
adolescence,
both
cringe-
worthy to read yet strangely
impossible to tear your eyes away
from. There’s a certain appeal
to re-living the most intimate
moments of your life through
the gel-penned scribbles of your
younger self. London indie-pop
singer Arlo Park’s newest project,
Collapsed in Sunbeams, sounds
like a cinematic reimagining of
that high school diary — sans the
pubescent theatrics.
The 20-year-old’s debut album,
following a steady release of
singles and collaborations with
the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and
Clairo, takes on both the gritty
and lighthearted experiences that
come with navigating friendship
and love as a young adult. Across
12 tracks, seven lo-fi covers and
one poem track, Parks paints
a picture book of solace and
isolation. In an interview with
The New York Times, she shared,
“I find it harder to write about joy
because it’s simpler. There’s more
complexity in sad things. But I’m a
defiant optimist.” On Collapsed in
Sunbeams, these quiet moments
of joy and sadness intermix to
create a deeply personal bedroom
pop album perfect for the new
year.
Parks
first
broke
out
of
anonymity
with
her
2018
single
“Cola.”
The
stripped-
back track, crafted in under 20
minutes by Parks and producer
Luca Buccellati, chronicles the
breaking point of a relationship
filled with infidelity, earning over
15 million streams on Spotify since
its initial release. Parks solidified
her knack for storytelling and
vivid imagery on “Cola,” a skill
she’s maintained and grown on
Collapsed in Sunbeams.
Citing a line from Zadie Smith’s
“On Beauty” as inspiration for
the album title, Parks has found
her vision in a wide variety of
sources, including Studio Ghibli
films, Frank Ocean and her own
journal from when she was 13. It’s
easy to see these connections on
the project, with its kaleidoscope
of visuals and intimate pockets of
teenagehood.
On the song “Black Dog,” Parks
approaches depression and the
loss of a friend by suicide with
emotive
sincerity.
She
sings,
“Let’s go to the corner store
and buy some fruit / I would do
anything to get you out your room
/ Just take your medicine and eat
some food / It’s so cruel what your
mind can do for no reason.” Set
against plucky guitar and a simple
beat, Parks’s gentle vocals soften
the song’s tragic words.
Airy and glowing like the
sunbeams
of
the
album’s
namesake, Parks’s voice carries
the listener to another trial on
the dreamy pop track “Green
Eyes.” Here, she details the loss
of a relationship plagued by
unaccepting parents and sheltered
sexuality,
with
songwriting
credits and background vocals
from Clairo.
Parks, who is openly bisexual,
sings, “Of course I know why we
lasted two months / Could not
hold my hand in public / Felt their
eyes judging our love and baying
for blood.” Its breezy and warm
instrumentation are meant to
“uplift and comfort those going
through hard times,” according
to Parks. Her ability to find the
sunny undersides of even the
darkest struggles shines, a key
element that prevents Collapsed
in Sunbeams from feeling too
heavy to enjoy.
The
sleepy
and
beautiful
“Eugene,” which found its way
onto one of Michelle Obama’s
summer playlists last August,
narrates the sting of falling for
your best friend who falls for
someone else. Parks reflects,
“Hey, I know I’ve been a little bit
off and that’s my mistake / I kind
of fell half in love and you’re to
blame / I guess I just forgot that
we’ve been mates since day.”
It’s both a highly personal
narrative and yet something
anyone
can
find
resonant.
Maybe we’ve all had our own
version of “Eugene,” someone
who disrupts something good
and leaves us feeling detached
from the familiar. With tucked
in spoken-word pieces like the
titular “Collapsed in Sunbeams”
and “Black Dog Poem,” Parks
further immerses the listener
in her stories and provides a
kind of intimacy and specificity
sometimes
missing
from
mainstream bedroom pop.
Parks has grown since “Cola,”
still serving snapshots of inner
turmoil
and
love
but
with
matured sound and production.
The tracks “Too Good” and
“Portra
400,”
which
Paul
Epworth (Adele, Florence + the
Machine)
produced,
evoking
the coming-of-age, end credit
vibrance Parks says she dreamed
of in an interview with Apple
Music.
She’s no longer a 17-year-
old making beats in a nameless
London flat, but Parks’s music
today is no less disarmingly
sincere. Collapsed in Sunbeams
is a melancholic journey through
youth, promising a bright future
of storytelling and vulnerability
for Parks.
NORA LEWIS
Daily Arts Writer
‘The Divines’ offers a razor-
sharp exploration of adolescence
and class divides
Welcome to St. John the Divine,
an English boarding school for
girls where students (nicknamed
the Divines) keep secrets, form
alliances and vie for popularity.
There are several things that make
a Divine: the coy hair flip, the blasé
use of French, the haughty walk,
the mysterious nicknames. To be
one of the Divines is to embody
something intangible, a result of
the social molding that takes place
in every girl that enters the school’s
hallowed halls. But what goes on
behind the smiles and façades?
In Ellie Eaton’s razor-sharp new
novel, “The Divines,” Josephine,
a former student at St. John the
Divine, revisits the grounds of
her old school and reflects on
her haunted past. In her last year
at boarding school, a scandal
rocked the Divines that torments
Josephine well into her adult
life. Under her husband’s gentle
prompting, Josephine faces her
complicated past and realizes
that, despite the distance she put
between herself and her old school,
she can never fully escape its legacy.
The world of the Divines is
equally compelling and twisted;
they exude a kind of ethereal
energy that is intoxicating to read
about. Eaton makes sweeping
claims
about
her
characters,
saying, “Divines were committed
oversharers by nature,” “together
Divines were indomitable” and
“Divines could sleep anywhere,”
giving the reader a sense of the
exclusive and cult-like nature of the
novel.
At the same time, the petty
grievances,
social
struggles,
references to sexual misconduct
and class biases reveal an uglier
side to the world of the Divines.
The fact of the matter is the girls of
the Divine are snobby and entitled,
calling the residents of a nearby
village ‘townies’ and flaunting their
privilege and money. Josephine
seems
to
disapprove
of
this
behavior, but is equally complicit.
In this way, the novel perfectly
captures the pain of adolescence,
making sharp observations about
social dynamics and the cruelty of
youth. Little interactions between
the girls felt momentous: Fleeting
looks, cold shoulders and insincere
smiles
become
agonizingly
significant. “The Divines” painfully
reminded me of my angsty teenage
years, evoking the same raw and
gritty feelings.
The story unfolds at a perfectly
measured
pace.
As
Josephine
reflects on her past as a Divine, little
by little, details of her time at the
boarding school reveal themselves.
For the reader, there is a sense of
foreboding. Something bad is going
to happen and you can feel it.
The prologue gives a little taste
of the scandal that occurs, leaving
the reader hooked, needing to know
what happens. I spent the rest of
the novel breathlessly awaiting the
big reveal, feeling the tension in the
novel coil tight like a spring. Eaton
writes with a nuance and masterful
grasp of social interplay that feels
reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s
“Never Let Me Go.”
As
a
teenager,
Josephine
is
angsty,
self-conscious
and
compliant. She is tormented with
thoughts of whether she is liked,
where she falls on the social ladder
at school and how she can appear
cool. On the other hand, her adult
self is happily married and self-
sufficient. One thing I struggled
with while reading “The Divines”
was this gaping disconnect between
Josephine’s past and present selves;
how did this insecure, awkward
teenager become a functioning
adult? I don’t doubt that this kind
of transformation is possible (I
can only hope that I’ve changed a
lot from my high school self), but
the book offers no insight into how
Josephine turned out so different
as an adult.
Were her teenage insecurities
purely run-of-the-mill adolescent
angst, something she grew out
of with age? This question isn’t
really answered in the novel, and
I was left struggling to bridge
the gap between younger and
older Josephine. I did, however,
enjoy seeing how Jospehine’s past
affected her as an adult. Though
somewhat disjointed, the paralleled
storylines serve their intended
purpose, adding to the suspense
and allowing us to see the legacy of
Josephine’s past as a Divine.
Because
of
the
slow
and
deliberate development of the
novel, it took me a while to
get into it, but when I did, boy,
was I hooked. “The Divines”
is a provocative coming of age
story, rich with explorations
of class divides, secrets, sexual
awakenings
and
adolescent
insecurities. I will admit I began
reading knowing nothing about
the novel or author, but was left
haunted by the story for days after
I finished and keenly interested
in what Ellie Eaton might write
next. The Divines’ school motto
is memoir amici, (“remember
friends”) — an ironic inclusion
considering
Josephine
spends
most of her adult life trying to
escape her past as a Divine.
And yet, in the end, she is
unable to. She is just as haunted by
childhood friendships, secrets and
the trauma of her past well into
adulthood. “The Divines” brought
me back to my own adolescence,
and the experience felt just as
exciting, awkward, uncomfortable
and thrilling as I remember it.
EMMA DOETTLING
Daily Arts Writer
Velveteen Dreams: Serge Lutens, an Olfactory Odyssey, Pt. Two
The main thing I love about
perfume is that it’s ridiculous.
Every aspect of it is ridiculous.
The very sound of the word
“perfume,” even as I hear it in
my head, makes my skin crawl,
and it’s exhilarating. I love the
saccharine, schmaltzy snips of
copy generously classified as
descriptions. I love how everyone
involved in the marketing of
it has collectively come to the
conclusion that the less sense you
make, the better.
Full abstraction. I don’t know
how an advert featuring Nicole
Kidman running around taxis in
Times Square, looking completely
bewildered in a $20,000 gown,
translates into a concrete sales
figure, but you know what? I’ll let
one of the business majors figure
it out; that’s not my problem.
The business of fragrance is
built on artifice. Fragrance itself
is about as detached as a creative
medium can get from reality —
the best roses are composed of
no discernible rose, chemical
compounds
that
give
musk
its “sex” factor are naturally
occurring signs of decay and an
entire scent category (the fougère)
was inspired by an odorless plant.
Yet, smell is the sense most
closely
linked
to
emotion
and memory, and the skilled
deployment
of
scent
can
communicate
things
that
lie beyond words, logic and
rationalization.
Few
perfume
houses have been able to marry
creative vision and emotion while
wielding the inherent silliness
of the industry, and the house of
Serge Lutens is one of them.
Serge
Lutens,
the
former
art director of Shiseido and
pioneering figurehead of his
eponymous label, is an intensely
private man. Despite his fame,
he almost never gives interviews.
Outside
of
his
profile
on
Kafkaesque, there is little to be
found concretely about his early
life, let alone his swift entree into
the fashion and beauty world of
the 1960s.
There are hints of his origins
in the titles of his fragrances,
especially more recent outputs
like “L’Orpheline” and “Baptême
du
Feu”
(French
for
“The
Orphan” and “Baptism of Fire,”
respectively) that touch on his
tumultuous childhood. He was
separated from his mother shortly
after birth, because it was illegal
for an unwed woman to give birth
and raise a child as a single mother
in Lutens’s French hometown.
His experiences with familial
rejection and abandonment —
and their ties to a societal and
legal system steeped in a very
conservative
interpretation
of
Catholicism — had a profound
impact on his life and work,
not the least of which being his
contribution to perfumery.
At 14, Lutens began working in
a salon in Lille, and despite not
wishing to work there, it would
serve as a catalyst for his creative
prowess to come to life. He soon
ventured
into
hairdressing,
makeup artistry, photography,
styling and creative consulting.
He had a penchant for feminine
extremes and borderline-gothic
contrasts between white, black
and bold colors.
His
polaroids
eventually
landed him a place at French
Vogue under Edmonde Charles-
Roux, which then opened doors
at a number of high profile
publications, including Elle and
Harper’s Bazaar. He is credited
with helping develop the first
high fashion cosmetics line at
Christian Dior in 1966, working at
the house until accepting his post
at Shiseido in the early 1980s.
It was under Shiseido that he
created “Nombre Noir,” a now-
infamous and highly coveted
collector’s item, but commercial
flop whose stock is humorously
rumored to have been bulldozed
by
the
company.
Despite
“Nombre
Noir’s”
incredibly
high production expense and
commercial failure, its liberal use
of rose-tinted damascenones and
its complicated, yet sheer chypre
structure colored the path on
which Lutens was headed.
Shiseido’s
faith
in
his
ideas didn’t wane, and his
collaboration with perfumers
Christopher
Sheldrake
and
Pierre
Bourdon
spawned
a
dark,
yet
minimalistic
and
transparent take on a cedar-
based perfume in the inimitable
“Féminité du Bois” in 1992.
“Féminité
du
Bois”
was
a
sensation, taking the sheer,
uncomplicated
sentiment
in
perfumery
represented
by
Bulgari’s “Eau Parfumée au
Thé Vert” and Issey Miyake’s
“L’eau d’Issey” and giving it an
emotional, yet sovereign and
unmistakably dark backbone
with piles of dried fruits like
peach and plum, ginger, benzoin
and his now-signature clove.
It may sound dramatic, but it’s
hard to understate the influence
of “Féminité du Bois” in modern
perfumery.
The
room-filling
ambers and chypres of the 1970s
and ’80s had reached their
breaking point, but the ethereal
jingles issued as a response to
them felt more like an apology
than a meaningful evolution.
The notion that you could
either have a symphony or a wisp
was put to rest by Serge’s second
release under Shiseido, and it
spawned the “Les Eaux Boisées”
line that initially occupied his
Palais Royal storefront.
The aforementioned “Féminité
du Bois,” “Bois et Musc,” “Bois et
Fruits,” “Bois Oriental” (a name
and
olfactory
category,
now
referred to as amber, currently
undergoing a politically-inclined
reconstruction), “Un bois sépia,”
“Un bois vanille,” “Miel de bois”
and “Bois de Violette” were
among the house’s first releases,
which would soon reinvent the
modern amber, the tawdry musk
and the soliflore with something
new to say.
In the house’s nearly 30 years
of existence, Serge Lutens has
created a number of ambers,
florals and other fragrances
that remain true to its brand
of
complicated,
interesting,
even “loud” offerings that veer
from
weighing
themselves
down.
Beyond
the
“Bois”
flankers, ranky, stanky fuck
me musks like “Muscs Koublai
Khan,”
leathery
florals
like
“Sarrasins,”
sonorous
soliflores like “A la nuit” and
smoldering ambers like “La
couche du diable” all do their
part in populating a canon that
simply cannot be outdone or
diminished.
Though the copy and the art
direction may reach far beyond
the threshold of camp, the heart
of Serge Lutens continues to
create products rooted in ideas
that gleefully skip down to their
scientific and artistic extremes.
There is not a bottle that is
phoned in, and there is not an
accompanying
write-up
that
doesn’t blast beyond the confines
of what can be readily imagined,
and that’s what makes this house
so powerful.
SAM KREMKE
Daily Arts Columnist
Transgressive Records
Design by Elizabeth Yoon
East West Haven