Polly Mackey, trading as Art School Girlfriend, really feels like the whole package: an electronic auteur who writes, records and co-produces, she also hosts a radio show on the female-led Foundation FM and has scored independent films. On her second album as ASG, the Welsh-born artist draws deep from both digital and analogue sensibilities, her club-facing, saturated alt-pop aiming to reflect “small euphorias” – the joy in everyday things. The album’s cover art – a vaporous cloud, tinged with pink – and the LP’s title, meanwhile, accurately forecast 11 gauzy, liminal states.
The aural equivalent of a smoky eye, Soft Landing trades hard on sultry melancholy, with Mackey sometimes recalling a dazed Tracey Thorn, by way of Romy; Marika Hackman, ASG’s girlfriend, guests occasionally. The winning tracks here are those angled towards the dancefloor, where all ASG’s hazy, filtered sounds come nailed to well-defined beats. The opening one-two of A Place to Lie (hinting at both house and drum’n’bass) and the more limpid Close to the Clouds are persuasive calling cards. Elsewhere, the sound design remains lush, but everything turns more soft focus, the bpms drop. Songs such as Waves may offer up intriguing oscillations, and some unforeseen guitar riffs ambush The Weeks, but more variety and definition would transform a very promising mood piece into a truly memorable one.
