Polly is finding her vital artistic space: Wrexham producer talks new EP Into The Blue Hour

Her upcoming second EP ‘Into The Blue Hour’ tracks her move from London to a tightly knit creative community in the seaside town of Margate, where she now lives and runs an art bookshop – Spine Books – with her girlfriend. After trading the intrusive city skylines for an endless horizon by the sea, Mackey’s forthcoming music has a new sense of space, depth and introspection.

Named after the time where the light is perfect either at dawn or dusk, ‘Into The Blue Hour’ finds her exploring her intent as an artist and the feeling of being the only person within a square mile when walking her dog on the beach. And fans can enjoy the fruits of those labours when she headlines Birmingham’s Hare and Hounds on Thursday.

“I’m that type of person that needs a lot of regular change. I have to just throw everything up in the air and see what happens when it lands.” At 18, Polly Mackey moved to London from her hometown of Wrexham. The founder of Welsh shoegaze outfit Deaf Club, Mackey and her bandmates eventually all moved to the capital with hopes of pursuing a full-time career in music.

Working in bars and interning at fashion magazines and record labels, Mackey threw herself into London’s creative ecosystem. “Coming out at 18, you go kind of crazy. I guess I was having a bit of a delayed adolescence after not being able to be myself as a teenager”, she recalls.

Deaf Club signed a publishing deal with Domino Publishing and released EPs on Transgressive imprint Kissability before disbanding in 2014, the year that Mackey met her current girlfriend, an artist based in Peckham, South London.

Meeting her girlfriend helped Mackey reconcile with her own identity as a gay woman. “When I was growing up, I didn’t want to be a lesbian. I didn’t see any benefit to it. I wasn’t represented anywhere in culture in a positive way, not like now. Even artists I knew were gay weren’t singing about it.”

Simultaneously, Mackey was part of a mostly-heterosexual, male-dominated guitar music scene in East London. Getting bored with the predictability of London’s guitar music scene, Mackey would find herself driving between Hackney and her girlfriend’s house in Peckham listening to club music on pirate radio.

Now citing these stations as a major influence in her more electronic solo work, Mackey began recording as Art School Girlfriend shortly after her band split up. “In Deaf Club, I’d always have to consider everybody’s taste when we made the music but now I can do whatever I want and if one of my songs doesn’t have drums, that’s okay.”

Mackey’s debut release as Art School Girlfriend was the ‘Measures’ EP. “All the songs on that EP were about considering where I was at in life. I think I felt like I was falling out of love with London, the honeymoon phase of my relationship had ended and I was considering whether or not to stick things out or make another change”, she recalls. Eventually deciding that a future for them in London was unsustainable, Mackey and her girlfriend moved to seaside town Margate where a budding creative community was already forming. “There’s just so much more space. Nobody is in a rush. I go down to the beach every morning of the year, whatever weather, to walk my dog. I feel like I have so much more time to think, to be alone. It feels like so many people there have all come down from London looking for exactly the same thing, space to create; but there is also this other side of Margate that feels like a piece of the city, and you can tap into that when you need it.”

The ‘Into The Blue Hour’ EP sees Mackey expand her tool kit as a producer. “When I write, I start with the production”, she explains. Beat-driven lead single ‘Moon’ finds her dancing in a club, meeting someone and feeling a connection. “Euphoria is one of my favourite feelings. I love euphoric music. When I lived in London, a lot of my time was spent going out and dancing. ‘Moon’ really came from that place, whereas the other three tracks on the EP were written in Margate.”

The depth of field and emotional honesty across the EP speaks of an artist who has found her voice and a space to breathe and develop.

Art School Girlfriend’s ‘Into The Blue Hour’ EP is out this September on Wolf Tone.