Art School Girlfriend crafts a beguiling atmosphere of electronica and dance music, with illuminating synth-textures, dappling trance, and breakbeat-inspired elements, combine into an engrossing, detailed tapestry. Polly Mackey’s songwriting craft and depth is matched by a voice of knowing, longing and experience, yet it has a comfort of a Tracey Thorn, but it is her own voice that wraps itself around you like a warm duvet as she’s dealing with emotional peaks and lows.
Art School Girlfriend, Aka Polly Mackey, released her second album “Soft Landing”, via Fiction Records. The album is self-described as a series of “small euphorias”, it is an album that finds Mackey shifting her sound towards tactile electronics whilst retaining the floating melodies of her debut.
Lead track “Close To The Clouds”, follows the success of standalone single “A Place To Lie” earlier this year. “Close To The Clouds” is an integral part of “Soft Landing”, with the central refrain providing the album with its title, and the song unfurling into climbing, arpeggiated synths amidst acid-house indebted drums
Surprise! New song “Real Life” is out today. This is one of my favourites from the album, and wouldn’t be what it is without co-prod from Riley MacIntyre, strings from Chloe Kraemer + Alfie Johnson and backing vocals from Marika Hackman.
“Soft Landing” follows Mackey’s 2020 debut album, “Is It Light Where You Are?” an album made in the wake of a tumultuous time and released during one. “Soft Landing” feels like Mackey’s true debut, a record of curiosity and playfulness with songs that sound like they are falling effortlessly into place.
The Fat Angel Sings 