• Home
  • Releases
  • Blog
  • Design
  • Posters
  • Submission Guidelines
  • About
  • Privacy Policy

Loser City

Multimedia Collective

  • Home
  • Releases
  • Features
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Art
  • Submissions
You are here: Home / Features / Fossil Records: Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure

Fossil Records: Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure

July 20, 2016 By Chris Jones Leave a Comment

Fossil Records

Sometimes, for whatever reason, great art slips past audiences and remains woefully underappreciated. Which is why we’ve created an essay series called Fossil Records, devoted to helping people discover lost and obscure work that never got its due.

Ambient music, though conceptually simple, perpetually walks a tricky line: make it too minimal and it risks being boring and irritating, stuff it with too much and soon it can’t be called “ambient” at all anymore. From Gardens Where We Feel Secure by Virginia Astley (no relation to the infamous Rick) neatly sidesteps this problem by evoking not so much mood as time and place, less the simple notion of bucolic England and more its literal, physical sound and dimension. It is lovely, forward-thinking work and, even though this entire column is about great out-of-print records, I must go out of my way to note that it’s a true crime that this album isn’t commercially available anymore, given how many genres and artists it must have breathed some measure of life into.

Broadly speaking, Gardens is a collection of nature recordings that are structured around piano loops and gentle woodwinds. Adorably, side A is called “Morning” and side B is “Afternoon.” Imagine if the town of Hobbiton was really big on Debussy and you’ll have a decent idea of the feeling this album is going for. And indeed, if that definition were to indicate to you that this album is nothing more than New Age claptrap, or even if you came to that conclusion from the title of the album alone, it would be perfectly understandable.

But to do so would be to miss a whole range of atmospheres and dynamics that this album explores well beyond the simple goal of putting the listener in their happy place. The title track is disorientingly melancholic, coming off more as a Mogwai inspiration than something for Enya fans to zone out to, and songs with names like “A Summer Long Since Passed” and “When the Fields Were On Fire” hint at a deeper mystery. As a lyricless concept album, Gardens focuses on tangibles both in the song titles and in the construction of the music itself: a water wheel is used as off-kilter percussion on one track, the scattered chirping of birds as melodic accompaniment on another. While soothing, there is counterpoint in these compositions that provides not drama, exactly, but wistfulness. It’s as apt to remind you of a date with a lost love as a day at the lake when you were a child.

Rarely does one find modern, relaxation-oriented classical music this engaging. The title track, as stated, feels like an important development in the creation of orchestrally-minded post-rock, and opener “With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming” will stay in your head for weeks. The pastoral world Gardens invokes is small and safe, but not entirely simple or predictable. The tracks are threaded to flow into each other seamlessly and titled like short novels; it’s impossible to shake the feeling there’s a bigger picture to be observed inside of this album, but the soft abstraction ensures whatever painting congeals will be a solitary, private work of the listener’s own creation.

From Gardens Where We Feel Secure is one of my favorite albums, lost or otherwise. Textured enough to allow for playful dissection, meditative and content enough to ensure no such dissection is mandatory, I can find myself listening to it many times per day without finding it grating or tiresome. Careful and nuanced and free, Virginia Astley’s magnum opus is ripe for remastering and revitalization, a surefire inspiration for a new generation of producers and composers.


Christopher M. Jones is a comic book writer, pop culture essayist, and recovering addict and alcoholic living in Austin, TX. He currently writes for Loser City as well as Comics Bulletin and has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators for his minicomic Written in the Bones (illustrated by Carey Pietsch). Write to him at chrismichaeljones@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: classical, Fossil Records, Music, New Age, Virginia Astley

About Chris Jones

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

SOCIAL

FacebookInstagramTumblrTwitter

Buy Loser City Apparel

loser city T-shirt

Be a Loser

Sign up for Loser City's mailing list to receive weekly updates about the latest articles, shows, and releases.

TRENDZ

Anatomy of a Page art Austin CBS comedy comics Dark Horse DC DC Comics documentary Fantagraphics Film Fossil Records Games HBO hip-hop horror humor IDW Image Comics Indie indie comics jake muncy manga Marvel Marvel Comics Melissa Benoist Music penny dreadful Pete Toms punk Questionable Comics Review Ryan K Lindsay sci-fi Seattle Showtime Supergirl SXSW Television the CW TV video games Video of the Week ymmv

Top Posts & Pages

  • Let's Do the Panic Again: Phantom Planet Returns

Follow Loser City

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
Instagram has returned invalid data.

Follow loser_city on the Gram

Loser City is…

Comics, shows, a secret critical network -- we aim to fail big.

Danny Djeljosevic: Co-Founder

Morgan Davis: Co-Founder

Nick Hanover: Glorious Godfrey of LC

David Fairbanks: Creative Writing Editor

Kayleigh Hughes: Film Editor

Julie Muncy: Games Editor

David He: Assisting Consultant*

Contributors: Nate Abernethy, John Bender, AJ Bernardo, CJ Camba, Liam Conlon, Daniel Elkin, David A. French, Rafael Gaitan, Dylan Garsee, Stefanie Gray, Johnson Hagood, Shea Hennum, Zak Kinsella, Austin Lanari, Marissa Louise, Francesca Lyn, Chase Magnett, Justin Martin, Diana Naneva, Claire Napier, Joshua Palmer, James Pound, Mike Prezzato, Lars Russell, David Sackllah, Keith Silva, Nicholas Slayton, Carly Smith, Ray Sonne, Tom Speelman, Mark O. Stack, Dylan Tano, Mason Walker

Art

Why So Angry: Refusing to Forget Stories of Abuse

Poetry: My God, My World

Comic Cinema Club: Sorcerer by Rafael Gaitan and Mike Prezzato

Nonfiction: Progeny in Crisis by Kayleigh Hughes

The Persistence of Synergy: Scenes from the Stock Business Photo Prison Hellscape

More Art

Interviews

Dhani Harrison Plots His Own Path With Solo Debut In///Parallel

Boston Terriers and Desert Vibes: A Conversation with Jay and Sanders Fabares of “The Pale”

Questionable Comics: Becky & Frank and Rachael Stott

More Interviews

Copyright © 2022 · Metro Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in