Song Of the Day: May 16, 2006
Virginia Astley - It's Too Hot To Sleep
From the LP From Gardens Where We Feel Secure,
Rough Trade Records, 1981
People forget this these days, when ambient instrumental music tends to be disdainfully lumped in the "new age" bin and forgotten (and rightfully so, since much of it is genuinely awful), but in the late '70s and early '80s, this type of music was considered positively cutting-edge. It wasn't, of course -- see "Satie, Erik" -- but after Eno's early experiments in ambient music, many interesting post-post-punk albums (almost all of them in the UK and northern Europe) included those influences. One of my favorites is Virginia Astley's 1981 album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure.
The daughter of British film composer Edwin Astley, Astley was all but unknown when she recorded this album, having only been part of the never-recorded cult trio the Ravishing Beauties (whose other two members, Kate St. John and Nicky Holland, went to some success as members of the Dream Academy and Tears For Fears, respectively, plus Nicky did a couple of pretty good AAA solo records) and doing some session work with her brother-in-law, some dude named Pete Townshend. That's Virginia's piano all over "Slit Skirts," for example. Supposedly originally written as demos for the Ravishing Beauties, the 10 songs on From Gardens Where We Feel Secure are piano solos with occasional woodwinds, backed with tapes of the sounds of the pastoral English countryside. "It's Too Hot To Sleep" is the closing song, fading out to the sound of insects cheeping through the night. Astley's classical training (and, perhaps, her father's cinematic influence) is obvious here: it's subtle, but there's a logical progression to this tune as opposed to the aimless meandering that so many similar records feature. Astley has maintained an extremely low-key career since her brief moment in the British indie spotlight, but this remains by far my favorite of her albums.
-Stewart Mason
posted by Jon Harrison at 9:13 AM
4 Comments:
Hi Jon (et al),
Just a quick word to say that I've been addicted to Little Hits for quite some time now and that I find your "diving for pearls" absolutely the best!
So much so that back in Portugal I've started my own "songs of the day" blog (I hope you forgive me for stealing the idea, but the invitation is there for you to stop by PET SONGS someday and drop me a line).
As far as Virginia Astley is concerned, all I have to say is that posting something like this absolutely ravishing and delicate piece of music takes a lot of courage. Thanks!
I had forgotten what group that Nicky Holland emerged from. Thanks for jogging my memory. I've been loving this site for quite some time! Keep up the good work.
Astley was brilliant. This album and the follow-up compilation of EP tracks are both lovely, as was the subsequent "Melt The Snows". Following that she went a bit too twee, but did manage some nice stuff with Richard Jobson's poetry along the way.
G'day there mate. I've never seen your site before, looks interesting. I must check it out some time. I just wanted to say that I agree entirely with your comment about late 70s/early 80s Ambient music. Much of it gets lumped with the worse kinds of New Age. I reckon this is in part becuase you do get a few of the 60s generation getting into Ambient at that time. Their music can shift between the better New Age/Meditation music through to more proper Ambient. Check out Malcolm Harrison (He even shares a surname, and hence why I found your page). Preferably anything other than Forgotten Dreams.
ciao
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