Art School Girlfriend, London

Art School Girlfriend biography

Art School Girlfriend is an atmospheric electronic project from musician and singer/songwriter Polly Mackey. After spending the early 2010s as part of textural shoegaze outfit Deaf Club, Mackey transitioned to a more synth-friendly approach with her solo work, finding her voice on several EPs and miscellaneous releases, and honing her ambient pop sound on her full-length albums Is It Light Where You Are and Soft Landing. Hailing from Wrexham, North Wales, Mackey developed a taste for the work of artists like PJ Harvey and the Jesus & Mary Chain, as well as various new wave and shoegaze acts. After playing in various bands, including Deaf Club, she relocated to London where she lived for five years before settling in Margate, Kent. There she began writing her own songs -- inspired by her own experiences as well as the written works of Virginia Woolf and Milan Kundera -- and began listening to more electronic music from artists like John Maus and Caribou. Opting for the moniker "Art School Girlfriend," her songs caught the attention of Grammy Award-winning producer Paul Epworth (Florence + the Machine, Adele) and she signed with his label, Wolf Tone Records, in 2017. Her debut EP, Measures, followed later that year and Mackey promoted the release with live performances around the U.K. in 2018. A second EP, Into the Blue Hour, was released in 2018, and various remixes and standalone tracks followed over the next two years. The first Art School Girlfriend album, Is It Light Where You Are, came out on Wolf Tone Records in September of 2021, and was accompanied by companion piece Is It Dark Where You Are, a collection of remixes including work from Baltra, Jessica Winter, Blankson, and others, released in 2022. Sophomore album Soft Landing was released in August of 2023, created with the help of co-producer Riley MacIntyre and British songwriter Marika Hackman.

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