That the Welsh producer and singer-songwriter Polly Louise Mackey is known only by the stage name Art School Girlfriend is appropriate. For me, her music has an air of mystery, concealing as much as it reveals – unless you listen closely. This is exactly what her third album ‘Lean In’ is inviting the listener to do.
Like the out of focus album cover, the repeated chorus ‘Love you all the time’ (from the song ‘L.Y.A.T.T.’) starts muffled but then gradually seems to sharpen, as if the listener is moving towards the singer, growing ever clearer.
‘On the days that we don’t speak that much at all
When your mind is moving somewherе I can’t go
It’s a kick inside that’s deep enough to know
I know that I love you all thе time’
According to Mackey, ‘L.Y.A.T.T.’ is about the resilience of love through times of physical or mental distance…’
In the video, the idea of distance seems to find reflection in the loneliness and isolation of the scenery, the electronic wash of sound as expansive as the landscape around her.
