THIS won't be the first time Rossett musician Polly Mackey has appeared in her local newspaper but a lot has changed since we first featured her as a teenage singer songwriter about to head off to Austin’s famous SXSW music festival.

That was back in 2009 and now nine years later, you could argue that the 27-year-old is finally fulfilling the potential she always showed in her earlier Wrexham-based bands like Deaf Club and The Pleasure Principle.

Adopting the moniker Art School Girlfriend, Polly's new 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.

"Margate is really quite similar to Wrexham," says Polly, who moved to London from her hometown when she was just 18. "Moving from Rossett to London was really exciting and there were so many opportunities there but it got to the point where it was impossible to live there as a musician.

"A couple of years ago people started moving out to this weird little Kent town called Margate where there was a burgeoning creative scene. I'm loving being in a small town again and it's like in Wrexham where anybody who knows anybody in a band comes together and it's very collaborative. It's a real grass roots feeling that I really love."

Polly has recently returned from Canada where she was representing Wales at the POP Montreal International Music Festival with the help of the organisers of Wrexham's FOCUS Wales event.

"It was really nice in Canada and good to be surrounded by so many familiar faces," she says. "We did two shows including one for Focus Wales which was in a park and was very picturesque.

"Jack who plays guitar with me is also from Wrexham so it's nice to all sit around and reminisce about how we'd all go to Central Station when we were 15."

Polly, 27, got into music early and inspired by musicians like PJ Harvey she began to perform locally while still just a teenager.

"I went to Darland High School," she remembers. "There wasn't much music going on there and I didn't actually take music as a subject because it was so piano based and I just wanted to play guitar! But what did happen was I had drum lessons for free every Wednesday which really helped me.

"In my last year at high school I got involved in the music scene in Wrexham and Central Station was the main hub - a lot of the people who were at college were the ones putting on the gigs. Normally when you're 16 you've got nowhere to go unless there's a youth club or you're hanging out in the park so to be allowed to go to these gig from the age of 14 at Central Station and having major touring bands like Foals and Metronomy play there was really inspiring at a young age.

"The people putting on the shows would get local acts to support the bigger names which was a great learning curve and I first played live at a pub called the Goldbourne in Borras when I'd just turned 16 and I was on my own with an acoustic guitar.

"I played on my own for a while but I really lacked confidence. Most of the bands then were all male guitar bands and there were just no women and being a 16-year-old girl, the idea of setting up a band was quite intimidating."

After founding shoegaze outfit Deaf Club, Polly 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, she 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.

"When Deaf Club ended I started to get into production and listening to more electronic music and when it came to writing songs I felt like I hand a world of new sounds to explore," she says.

"I really wanted to work out how I wanted to sound and I spent about two years writing and recording on my own without showing anybody. I made sure I had a nice body of work that people could listen to and it was just right."

Polly's perfectionism paid off when world famous producer Paul Epworth was passed a demo of hers and called her in for a meeting. The multi Grammy and Academy Award-winning music producer, musician and songwriter's work with artists including Adele, Rihanna and Florence and the Machine has made him one of the most in demand figures in the music industry with a host of names signed to his roster.

"I bumped into a guy who was a friend of a friend and he said he'd been working with Paul," remembers Polly. "He was a real hero of mine as a teenager and I'd always followed his work so I sent him my music. I didn't hear back from him for a while but then one day I got an email saying that everyone here loves the songs and would I like to come in for a chat.

"I didn't sign a deal for about a year, but they allowed me access to studios in London to develop what were my demos into recorded tracks. It was very slow and organic and to have a record label run by a producer is a quinque thing because they really understand that music takes time.

"He's really passionate about music and listens to such a diverse range of sounds meaning he can then approach a pop tune after being inspired by a Talk Talk track that's nine minutes long."

Now writing and recording for her debut album, Polly has found an inspiring, hugely creative environment to work and live in. “I have this theory that when you’re looking at the horizon out at sea, that your eyes are stretching as far as they possibly can," she says.

"My eyes could never do that in London, there’d always be buildings in the way. Every night I see this bright pink sunset - I think maybe it’s something to do with the salt in the water - and sometimes you feel like you’re totally alone and the only person within a square mile. Feeling all that definitely has an effect on me.”

There's a UK tour to negotiate too which starts this week and ill hopefully allow Polly to visit her old stomping ground of Wrexham.

"It's the longest tour I've done to date, but it will be fun and nice to play some of the new tracks. I love seeing all the different parts of the UK and having an excuse to come up north again," she adds.

"My parents don't live there anymore but my girlfriend's parents live in Chester so it's a good excuse to visit. We played Focus Wales this year and to see all the changes to the town was crazy - there were lots of new places and it felt like the music scene was really vibrant."

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