The Weekly Coos

Growing into her own, Art School Girlfriend –Polly Mackey – has invariably shown this unique presence in Electro-Pop/Bedroom Pop, where the atmospheric textures ride the coattails of neutral to heightened synths and encapsulating drum patterns that it becomes easy to understand why her music is hypnotic. Her debut, Is There Light Where You Are, showcased the intuitive nature grown from an enveloping music scene – she’s taking known elements and influence from her time fronting a shoegaze band and developing these textures that may sound smooth and melancholy and vibrant – Mackey incorporates a proper balance between the calm and chaos doing such, and as starkly potent and poignantly subtle as the writing is, the music can have occasional moments that feel modestly homogenized – more so with the production, but never wholly bothersome. It makes the elevated and experimental nature of her follow-up, Soft Landing, fluid, allowing for a beautiful stream of music that bolsters the sensibilities that make you gravitate toward it. It’s smooth and fully fledged with new characteristics that feel refreshing, specifically when it deviates from typical atmospheric pop conjectures; more importantly, it excels at showing growth, even with the occasional hiccup.

Soft Landing does what most albums should do, and that’s set the playing field for the varying directions you’re going to take your sound; whether it has more lavish layering or subduing the elements to keep the melancholy tethered so when chaos erupts, the feeling becomes engrained within. Starting with “A Place To Lie,” it uses glitchy-house synths to contrast the distinct percussion, like the loose and multi-dimensional weaving piano keys add depth to the electronic components. It’s an ever-growing presence that rarely wavers in tone, so some elevated moments feel dissimilar but connected to the final product, especially when it brings more emotional potency than the smooth and atmospheric vocal performances. From here, the synths and percussion become an empowering presence that reinforces sentiments throughout the album. When talking about the lead single of the album, “Close to the Clouds,” The Line of Best Fit noted how Polly Mackey commented on its close ties to the themes of the album, saying that it “is taken from these [“Close To The Clouds”] lyrics, and this track represents a lot of the record’s themes: reflection, joy, coming of age.” 

As the music progresses, its themes become more open to digestion, especially as Mackey grounds her writing in reality; it lets these connections have more of a feeling than the cinematic junctures of certain tracks, like “Waves.” Unfortunately, Soft Landing hiccups when there is slight variation within specific sectors, making certain songs feel very constrained and calculated, despite elements of the production working, like the synthesizer shifts between verse and chorus on “Waves” or percussion on “Laugh My Head Off,” which carry a direct parallel, leaving little to the imagination. Despite effective, you feel like more could have gotten baked in. However, as it turns the bend with a few songs, replays turn some of these songs on their head with the synergy reflecting the vocals. On the latter track, we hear Mackey focusing on growth and coming of age with the music, feeling refined and spirited to weave these intricately unique productions that help bolster meaning. It’s what gives the album the power to have an upward trajectory of fluidity, especially when sounds get more jubilant, like with “Heaven Hanging Low,” a queer love song, “which is about finding that celestial and sublime euphoria in your closer, more domesticated surroundings,” according to Mackey. It makes something as simple as “The Weeks” become more of an afterthought.

In a way, I get reminded of the Japanese House’s latest album and how her music stretched the limits of the lo-fi-like electronica of her debut, allowing you to hear something more refined and new. It’s a valuable consistency that keeps ears glued to the headphones and the music app hidden so the temptation to change becomes less visual. More so, Polly Mackey’s vocal performances help tighten the mold and give you what feels more like streamlined consciousness that encourages the depth of the writing as it balances these themes to tell more linear and harmonious reflections. It isn’t a beginning, middle, and end tale that focuses on definites; her introspections pivot through unique inflection points, like “Blue Sky,” where Mackey and featured artist Tony Njuko duet beautifully as they deliver this impactful song on change, and how time is a construct that can get used to measure varying factors. Here, we see them speaking on transition and the passing of seasons, specifically how it affects moods, and where the best time seems to be at night when they can let it all run free.

That notion of running free feels potent on Soft Landing, particularly in the songwriting, where sometimes treads minimalist territory while remaining direct and full of wonder toward what is getting said. It’s like in the previously mentioned “Blue Sky” or with the second to last song, “How Do You Do It,” where the minimalist songwriting is beyond adaptable to the person it connects with as Mackey finds understanding in hold firm to love, an emotion many artists tend to struggle with as the commodities that come with it aren’t as available, mainly when you work around a busy life to decompress. It’s as if she’s wondering how one can balance the two, similar to how I questioned how Polly Mackey and co-producer Riley MacIntyre made what they made initially. It becomes an intriguing quandary when MacIntyre’s history of music is that of synth-heavy Doom Metal with the band Elephant Tree. As the music wavers through all these connections, there is much to lean back on, and that’s what makes Soft Landing a follow-up that’s more immersive and impressive than the debut.

What’s to say at the end? I dug this album; more than expected? Most certainly, especially when I feel that beautiful synergy between the production and vocals. It’s one of those albums that will fall by the wayside due to the subtle textures that keep it unique with consistency – more so when compared to other artists who do similarly. It’s an instant recommendation by me, and I hope you enjoy most of what Soft Landing offers you.