London-based producer, multi-instrumental musician and vocalist Art School Girlfriend shares her new single ‘In The Middle’ via Fiction Records/Wolf Tone.
Torn from the pages of a diary kept by Art School Girlfriend’s Polly Mackey in 2019, her forthcoming debut album chronicles the period following her US tour in support of The Japanese House where, after returning to the UK, Mackey would end her six year relationship, leave her home of Margate and return to London. While sleeping on a ...
London-based producer, multi-instrumental musician and vocalist Art School Girlfriend shares her new single ‘In The Middle’ via Fiction Records/Wolf Tone.
Torn from the pages of a diary kept by Art School Girlfriend’s Polly Mackey in 2019, her forthcoming debut album chronicles the period following her US tour in support of The Japanese House where, after returning to the UK, Mackey would end her six year relationship, leave her home of Margate and return to London. While sleeping on a friend’s sofa, she would clock 14 hour studio days while the bones of her debut album quickly formed, beginning with its first single ‘In The Middle’. Inspired by her state of mind at the time, the single finds Mackey entirely at the mercy of her emotions. Written in the narrow corridors of Church Studios in North London, the single’s production mimics those feelings of anxiety and claustrophobia: a relentless thudding drum beat carries the track as Mackey calls out “you’re a river running fast and I jump right in” before her voice is buried in a tide of bass. In the video, by frequent collaborator and Margate connect Tom Dream, Mackey wanders alone through a club of entranced dancers. Dream remains a throughline for Mackey since their first collaboration in the ‘Distance (Blank)’ video. She has since scored a film for Dream, ‘Shy Radicals’, a documentary inspired by a book he purchased at the book shop she co-owned in Margate, Spine Books.
Alongside her own headline tour and festival dates at Latitude, Green Man and Radio 1’s Big Weekend, Art School Girlfriend have toured Europe alongside Marika Hackman, the UK alongside Orlando Weeks and the US alongside The Japanese House. Outside of her own artist project, Mackey also lent vocals to Ghostpoet’s album ‘I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep’ and runs a monthly ambient/electronic show for womxn-lead radio station Foundation FM.
Further details about Art School Girlfriend’s debut album will be announced soon.
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