Art School Girlfriend – Soft Landing review

Many of us have recurring dreams about falling, in which we plummet endlessly towards some unknown ending but never quite reach the surface; you don’t need an expensive therapist to find out that this feeling symbolises a lack of control.

For Polley Mackey – AKA Art School Girlfriend – the soft landing of the title references a number of life events, not least of which is a pulling back from the glum career prophecies for musicians made during the pandemic. There is a future now, even if the direction is not always entirely clear.

There was also the consolation of a new relationship and Soft Landing most frequently gravitates it’s lush electronica towards the haven of new sharing. Partially abandoning the software composition of the past for more organic sounds, at it’s peak with Heaven Hanging Low, A Place To Lie’s skittering joy and Real Life’s austere strings and piano it’s a celebration of things most once took for granted, an eventual meeting with the kind of ground that both forgives and offers hope.

You can read a full review here.