Art School Girlfriend will release her second album Soft Landing on 4 August 2023. The artist, aka Polly Mackey, has described the album as a series of “small euphorias” which finds her moving towards tactile electronics.
Soft Landing marks the follow up to Art School Girlfriend’s 2020 debut album Is It Light Where You Are?
To co-incide with the announcement of the 11-track album Art School Girlfriend has also released her new track Close To The Clouds. The track features on the album, with the refrain providing the album with its title.
Close To The Clouds premiered on BBC6 Music courtesy of Lauren Laverne and features synths and acid-house drums.
Speaking about the track Polly Mackey said, “Close To The Clouds is about looking back on my twenties with some kind of wistful hindsight. I wanted it to embody the energy of the music I spent a lot of my teenage years and early twenties listening to. It’s about reflecting on the winding path to contentment, having finally figured out how to find it.
“The album title Soft Landing is taken from these lyrics, and this track represents a lot of the record’s themes: reflection, joy, coming of age.”
“Soft landing showed up to strike me when things were falling into place,” Polly says of the origins of the track. “I was at that typical moment where you’re leaving your 20s and realising you don’t have to work toward this concept of future happiness. Going to the pub with your mates can be the ultimate. Lying beside the person you love, watching the sun come in, can be it.”
image of Art School Girlfriend courtesy Chuffmedia