Polly Mackey (Art School Girlfriend) has come a long way from her first show at the Brudenell Social Club in 2018, to a busy headline gig in the Community Room tonight.
Aside from the obvious changes in her offstage relationships, at the time with then headliner Japanese House (Amber Bain) which now sees her married to the brilliant Marika Hackman (new music soon please, Marika!), who joins her as part of her band tonight on keys and bass, she’s grown musically too and plays a set from across her career to showcase it.
At that gig Mackey was the support artist, playing solo, a touch nervous and shy but her voice shone out for its beauty in that thirty-minute slot, a sound alongside it that gave a nod to Massive Attack. You knew you were witnessing a genuine talent emerging but could she follow through on it?
Yes, in that eight-year period since, she has released an EP, a double a-side single of which ‘Diving’ gets an early run out in the set tonight, still sounding sublime – and three albums. All of those records have ebbed and flowed in a very organic way, with tracks across all three veering between the more subdued and chilled post-club genre and out-and-out dancefloor fillers.
Two of those bigger songs tonight take us from a wet Wednesday night in Leeds to a club somewhere on a Saturday night, ‘L.Y.A.T.T.’ is huge from recent album ‘Lean In’; it has an almost trance feel to it as it builds up with the repetitive “love you all the time” lyric over the top. Trance has been a relatively dirty word in electronic circles for nearly thirty years or so now, after its heyday came and went, but in Mackey’s hands it’s a stone cold classic that she’s going to be playing live for years to come, I would imagine.
The other track in the middle of the set that proceeds L.Y.A.T.T. is ‘Real Life’. Pulled from her second album ‘Soft Landing’ it’s an upright thumping dance track and those two going back to back bring a brilliant change of pace at just the right time in the settr. Straight after these modern anthems in the making, she declares “Gonna stop having so much fun now and bring it down a little”.
She’s true to her word as ‘Waves’ matches the visuals on the screen behind, to the music being produced. It’s gentler paced, moodier and utterly sumptuous, with Marika’s vocal complimenting Polly’s, a clear indication the chemistry is in the music between them, too.
She dedicates the debut album title track ‘Is It Light Where You Are’ “to anyone in the crowd going through a break up” and it’s a further reminder that while she still hasn’t lost some of her shyness onstage and prefers to let her music do the talking, that if you listen to her lyrics over the years, she lays everything out pretty bare, heart on sleeve, good and bad – and it’s that openness that really draws you in, especially when it’s delivered through a gorgeous vocal, so you can’t help but relate and feel what she’s lived through.
Even if she wouldn’t agree from a lyrical perspective, she leaves us with the joyous ‘Hope, More Hopeless’, another epic from the recent long player, a slow intro build up, then kick drum comes in courtesy of live drummer AJ and boom, the track is off and running. Having already told us that “I’m too awkward to do the whole encore thing” we know this is the end and it’s a great song to send us into the night, a quality set from start to finish, fifteen songs and just short of an hour: perfection.
Also, perfect earlier in the night was Kloyd (Kate Lloyd). Despite being from Ilkley, this was her first ever Leeds gig and she proved to be a great match up with Art School Girlfriend as her support on this tour.
Despite being set up on the far end of the stage, she hops between playing live keyboards and knob- twiddling electronics and samples, producing a five-song set which is well received by the crowd filling up the room. Strong throughout, but it’s the 4th track she played which is my favourite, reminding me in places of peak era Orbital and that’s not a compliment I give out often, so hopefully she makes a return to Leeds soon and I’ll definitely be looking to pick up a copy of her forthcoming Mixtape EP.
Seeing her slightly awkward between songs, but clearly enjoying herself, playing solo this time (but she does do full band shows too when it’s viable), and very much a talented modern producer of electronic music that has a heart, it’s hard not to compare back to Art School Girlfriend being in the same position, in the same building eight years ago. If Kloyd can get even close to emulating her success, then we’ll have another electronic star in the making and with a local connection to boot.
Photography by Kev Trotter.
