ARLO PARKS My Soft Machine (Transgressive) — How does an artist follow up a debut that achieved the level of acclaim of Collapsed in Sunbeams. The first full-length outing from the British-born Arlo Parks raked in awards like they were chips in a hefty poker table win, the Mercury Prize standing as the most notable. Parks could have more or less stayed in place with My Soft Machine, her sophomore effort. Instead, she expands her sonic palette, keeping a grip on the neo-soul that made her name while integrating tingly, airy pop to up the seduction. The brief album opener “Bruiseless” recalls the wickedly precise ice cubes dispensed by Saint Etienne and there are enough echoes of vintage Everything but the Girl throughout to make it feel like they’re haunting the album’s sparest rooms. There’s nothing fragile about the album, though. There are plenty of tracks that are packed full: “Devotion” has a tight rock assurance, and “Weightless” lilts along with the ballast of a deep house groove that helps achieve the gravity-eschewing sensation of the title. The cool light is so bright that Phoebe Bridgers fluttered right over, lending the caress of her vocals to “Pegasus.” Back to the original question: How does an artist of Parks’s caliber move forward after a work the earned breathless acclaim. Fearlessly. In addition to the cuts already mentioned, go deeper with “Impurities,” “Devotion,” “Purple Phase,” the sideways experimentation of “Puppy,” and “Ghost.”

MIYA FOLICK Roach (Nettwerk) — Anyone who sampled Miya Folick’s 2022 EP, 2007, is going to take a spin with déjà vu as they dance along to sophomore full-length, Roach. Almost half the songs were also included on last year’s release, but the impressiveness of new record is that it doesn’t feel redundant. Instead, it’s Folick has smartly followed up her promissory note and is now paid in full. The inventive, slyly devastating instincts of the EP echo and grow more booming and resonant here, which also sharpens the already piercing lyrics. The lean, focused “Nothing to See” hits particularly hard; it’s prickly with an emotional honesty that sets any empathic listener reeling (“I’ve been trying to change the way I look so you like what you see/ I’ve been losing weight so I can wear these Dolls Kill jeans”). While staying true to herself, Folick shows she know how to veer into different territory, as with the pumping and defiant “Get Out of My House” or the earthy stroll of “Drugs or People” (this author perhaps has a special affection for the song because of the lyric “But you gotta help me help myself cause I’m a Gemini”). A set of songs this good could keep telescoping out indefinitely. Bring on the box set. Put your clip on these tracks: “Cockroach,” “Tetherball,” and “So Clear.”