Parks’ signature fuzzy, folksy, psychedelic rock grooves have evolved on this forthcoming album that departs into a brighter, bouncier, more eclectic style much inspired by Britpop. On the first three singles ‘Happy Birthday Forever’, ‘Brexit at Tiffany’s’ and ‘Do You Pray?’ Parks continues to ignite intrigue by grappling with reflective life questions and philosophical propositions but switches up the tempo at which this is expressed.

Almost a decade after the release of Blood Hot in 2013, Tess Parks’ second solo album And Those Who Were Seen Dancing will be released for our sonic pleasure on 20 May 2022 via Fuzz Club. Between then and now, two collaborative albums with Anton Newcombe have satiated the need for new music featuring Parks’ raspy, smouldering vocals but this fourth album is anticipated with real excitement. Guitars are exchanged for synth and drum beats that are still soaked in acid. Despite the notable shift in beat, the first singles from And Those Who Were Seen Dancing remain hypnotically true to Parks’ sound that is irrefutably cool and superbly sultry.

This organic creative shift pays homage to Parks’ fond memories and nostalgia for the era that she grew up in. Parks was exposed to British cultural icons such as Oasis and the Spice Girls in 1990s Toronto thanks to national radio and television embracing British musical imports. Coupled with her propensity to pay above the going rate for imported CDs and the gone but never forgotten print NME magazines, Parks was embroiled in a certain unique Britishness from across the Atlantic. When it was time to go to college, London was the obvious and only choice. She began a degree in Photography at seventeen but this was shelved soon after her eighteenth birthday to pursue music as her primary creative outlet. The universe congratulated her for this bold move as her music career was kickstarted by signing to 359 Records, owned by the legendary tastemaker and figurehead of Britpop, Alan McGee. Full circle or what?

We had the absolute pleasure of catching up with Parks ahead of the release of And Those Who Were Seen Dancing. She explained that this album has been a long time coming as old songs written many years ago constitute the bulk of the record. Now that these songs have been uprooted, pondered, processed and readied to share with the world, Parks has been able to create again - revealing that her band are already making moves on new sounds. As well as making more new music, Parks has directed her energy to painting small dots on canvas with acrylic pens to create trippy artwork of flowers and skyscapes that she presented and described as meditative independence. A musician, artist and photographer, Parks has a digital archive featuring snapshots of her life on film. I was particularly struck by the themes of her collections that led to a peculiar bonding over grief, afterlife, synchronicity and finding warmth in what others might consider morbid. It might sound odd, but through conversation of Parks’ music and photography, the same wavelength was being ridden across time and space.

How’s your day been so far Tess? I saw earlier that you’re playing South Facing Fest this Summer.

Richard Ashcroft, RIDE, Alan McGee… yeah, I’m feeling very blessed and can’t believe it. Bitter Sweet Symphony? Woah.

I also wanted to tell you straight up that in Toronto there’s been some cool synchronicity. In my parent’s neighbourhood there’s not a lot of graffiti art but someone last year graffitied ‘bad luck’ all around. At first it seemed bad but since we’ve been in touch it actually seems like good luck. It was like a premonition and thought it was important to mention.

Wow that’s so cool, life is so interconnected. So, you’re originally from Toronto but have been based in London for quite some time. When and why did you choose London?

I moved here when I was seventeen to go to the London College of Communication for Photography and then I dropped out to play music instead. I was still taking photos and still doing my own music photography independently. I loved the Spice Girls and Oasis growing up and it seemed like this was the place to be.

That’s awesome. So, you started off as a photographer and then music took hold?

Yeah, I played my first show just after my eighteenth birthday in London when I was still in school. I started playing more shows and was getting booked for stuff and enjoying it. I guess I always wanted to play music.

And then it was the legendary Alan McGee who first signed you to his 359 Music in 2013. How did it feel to be recognised by such a lynchpin of the music world?

I’m literally getting goosebumps right now! I still can’t believe he’s my friend, I’ve known him for ten years now. He’s been the most amazing mentor for me and is just the coolest. He’s always been a champion of mine and I’m just so grateful. You know, he signed Oasis?!

I wonder, how did the Spice Girls and Oasis enter your life growing up in Toronto?

Canadian radio and television always picked up on UK music and culture more so than in America. I grew up listening to Oasis on the radio and seeing the Wannabe music video on TV and I’m really glad.

And Those Who Were Seen Dancing is out now and it’s your first solo album since Blood Hot in 2013. Between then and now, you’ve released two albums with Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Can you talk me through the experience of collaboration compared to solo work and how it all feels in the creative process?

So, when I met Alan [McGee] I gave him these garage band demos of literally just me and an acoustic guitar and that’s what I was signed based off of… He thought I already had an album done so I had two weeks to record the first album. Actually, every album I’ve done has been the same essentially. I think the first album with Anton was recorded over the course of ten or eleven days. Our second album was about the same with some personal time off in the middle.

I was working with my best friend from high school for my first album and other friends and peers. There was no formula, no right or wrong way to record, no thinking about production value; it was very free-spirited. Whereas with Anton, he’s got a true sound.

For this upcoming album, it was all about hanging out with friends and recording a song in a day. They were supposed to be demos and we were gonna get together in the same room and record more live but obviously the world didn’t allow for that. I was sitting on these demos for ages and eventually decided I thought they were fine enough. I needed these songs out of my system and I wanted to start working on new things but I felt like I couldn’t until this project was finished. The album is filled with so many bits and bobs from all over the place. My dad plays on it, I got my mom to play a sound bowl at the beginning of the album, I gathered all these old friends and I finished it. It is what it is now and it couldn’t have sounded any different.

Wow! It sounds like this album has been super collaborative by opening your music up to your circle.

Yeah, for sure. A lot of the songs are more collaborative with the band too. We’d just come off a full year of touring so we were feeling like a real solid unit so a lot of the songs are co-written… And then I didn’t see them for two years!

You’ve touched on it a bit, but you shared on social media that this forthcoming album has taken years to compile and release. Why is that?

A lot of these songs were songs that I hadn’t released yet but would come up again and again and pop into my head for me to work on. I think that this is the last of the older songs though. Moving forwards, I’m gonna work on stuff that I’ve written in the past two years onwards and not stuff that I wrote when I was twenty-one. It’s weird to sing from that perspective now because that’s not where I’m at but the girl who wrote those songs really wanted them to be heard. Me at twenty-one wanted to be a musician a lot more than me now. So, I guess I’m doing it for that person.

Twenty-one-year-old you will be thanking you now, that’s for sure.

That’s the thing! Recently, I’ve gotten really into quantum physics and thinking about how time isn’t linear and somehow, I’m still that person… Y’know, it just doesn’t make any sense.

Thinking about time and space is pretty mind boggling.

I’m sure you’ve experienced time in a very different way as you did before the pandemic, right? Being stuck in space and not necessarily moving through time the way you would normally. Time was strange, it didn’t move.

I think it’s great that you were still able to get the record out. From listening to the first three singles, I hear big anthemic, Britpop, lo-fi vibes, particularly on the first single ‘Happy Birthday Forever’. Would you say that’s a fair note?

Yeah! As a band we were listening to a lot of Air, Fat Boy Slim and Death In Vegas. The record kind of just became whatever it is, I’m not really sure what genre it is at this point. We’ve been recording the next album and I think that’s gonna be really deliberate and intentional. The songs are a lot more mature because they’ve been written more recently and a lot more guitar driven again. I’m more excited about that than anything really.

It’s great to hear there’s already more new music in the pipeline! The single ‘Do You Pray?’ is an interesting medley of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ and ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’. It made me think so much about inherited and innate knowledge; somehow, we all just know these traditional songs. It’s cool how you utilise them to create something fresh. What was your drive behind the tune?

Spacemen 3 and Bob Dylan did this thing where they took old traditionals and it’s cool because that’s the lineage of music, it’s all inherited. We have to carry songs with us. Before recording was ever a thing, singing would be the only way to pass music onto others through repetition… like how did people react to hearing a Beethoven symphony? You’d have to hear it live or not at all. Eventually, the sheet music would be copied and someone else could perform it. Carrying on sound is so weird!

You’re so right. I feel like this all just feeds so well into the contemporary conversation around the digitisation of music - downloading rather than purchasing a physical copy. There are so many flip sides but ultimately it sucks for artists.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Physical copies make music so much more special. I remember that some CDs were imports from the UK and were super expensive in Canada so we’d make copies onto tape. I used to buy the NME as an import as well so it cost the equivalent of around twelve quid but I loved it and used to find out about new music. I like music less because of the way that we consume it; it’s so insular. I’d like to think that CDs will make a comeback in the same way as vinyl.

I think you’re onto something. On your website I came across your archive of photography. I was particularly intrigued by your recording of visits to artists' graves such as Brian Jones, Ian Curtis, Nick Drake and Nico. I wondered if you could talk to me a little about why you chose to archive these moments?

Wow that’s really nice, thank you. I’ve always made an effort to pay tribute to these people because they’ve been really important to me. That’s the closest to them you’ll ever get to absorb their energy. It’s interesting to go and realise how young these people were when you’re around the same age that they died. It’s kinda morbid but it’s not really, it’s nice. I haven’t really considered why I do that before now.

You say it’s morbid but I think it’s just part of being human. We’re fascinated with death and the afterlife because we can’t fully understand it. Energy can’t be made or destroyed so where does it go?

Right! I believe in a bodily death but I think our consciousness never dies. Energy from lost loved ones and synchronicity from beyond is so reassuring. I live for it.

Article by Meg Sweeney originally written for Bad Luck Magazine.