Pre-Order: Lean In [CD]

London-based, Wrexham-raised artist and producer Art School Girlfriend announces her third studio album Lean In, due March 13th via Fiction Records. She also shares new track ‘The Peaks’, and announces a 2026 run of headline dates.

Armed with the freedom and space to experiment, Lean In was self-produced in her own East London studio and sees Art School Girlfriend set to move from cult bedroom artist to one of the UK’s most vital artist/producers operating at the moment, tackling alternative rock, electronic pop & experimental ambient sounds in her most cohesive work to date.

Lean In arrives at a time where her audience has grown exponentially, partly due to her diverse involvement across the music scene at large – contributions to the work of Daniel Avery, Lane 8, Jasper Tygner and Ghostpoet; being chosen by Bonobo to DJ at his Outliers series at Drumsheds; touring the US with both The Japanese House and Marika Hackman; a notable DJ set for HOR; producing and engineering for up-and-coming post-rock band Pencil; the tastemaker curation of her 5-years-in-the-running monthly radio show on Foundation FM.

Self-producing, writing and recording Lean In, Mackey invites the listener to quite literally lean into the world she has built around her. With every detail intentional, this new record is less of a honing of her trademark sound of emotional blend of electronic sounds and shoegaze - and more of an expansion of it. At the top of next year, she will perform these new tracks for the first time on a UK headline tour.