Art School Girlfriend

Polly Mackey creates atmospheric electronic music under the Art School Girlfriend banner as a musician and singer/songwriter. Her route into solo work followed an early-2010s stint in the textural shoegaze outfit Deaf Club, after which she gravitated toward synth-driven material. Multiple EPs and scattered releases allowed her to refine her voice, while more complete realizations of her ambient pop approach surfaced on statements such as the 2023 album Soft Landing.

Born in Wrexham, North Wales, Mackey absorbed the sounds of PJ Harvey and the Jesus & Mary Chain plus assorted new wave and shoegaze acts. After performing in several bands that included Deaf Club, she relocated to London for five years before settling in Margate, Kent. There she began writing original material shaped by personal events and the writings of Virginia Woolf and Milan Kundera while immersing herself in electronic artists such as John Maus and Caribou.

Choosing the Art School Girlfriend name, she attracted the interest of Grammy Award-winning producer Paul Epworth (Florence + the Machine, Adele) and joined his Wolf Tone Records roster in 2017. Her first EP, Measures, appeared later that year, followed by U.K. live dates supporting the release throughout 2018. A second EP, Into the Blue Hour, surfaced in 2018, with assorted remixes and standalone tracks appearing over the next two years.

The first Art School Girlfriend album, Is It Light Where You Are, arrived on Wolf Tone Records in September 2021. Companion piece Is It Dark Where You Are, a remix collection featuring Baltra, Jessica Winter, Blankson, and others, followed in 2022. Sophomore album Soft Landing was released in August 2023, recorded with co-producer Riley MacIntyre and British songwriter Marika Hackman.