A Lovely Day

Browsing through The Guardian’s 1,000 Albums To Hear Before You Die a couple of weeks back I spotted an album that sounded like it might be right up my street; Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. Here’s what The Guardian said about it:

"Astley's ambient meditation on a summer's day in Arcadia is so bucolic it makes Nick Drake sound like Ghostface Killah. Garden gates creak, church bells toll, birds twitter and Astley's piano sparkles like sunlight on the surface of a mill pond. Possibly the most English album ever made."

"I’ll have a bit of that" thought I and immediately purchased it from Amazon for the princely sum of £5.98, which was daft really ‘cos if you go straight to everyone’s favourite label Rough Trade’s website you can pick it up for 98p less. Although if you choose Super Saver delivery on Amazon it’s free whereas Rough Trade charge a quid, meaning that you’d actually be 2p better off with Amazon. But Amazon sent me a Seinfeld boxset where the third disc doesn’t work properly, so "balls to them" say I.

Virginia is not exactly what you would call prolific (From Gardens... was recorded in 1983 and is currently her only album that it seems to be easy to get a hold of) but she does have a very lovely website which is well worth a look. Check out the Features page and click on the From Gardens... link under Miscellaneous for some pretty pictures and words that help sum up the whole album.

For it is, indeed, a thing of beauty. As a self-confessed ambient music champion – to the extent that I was briefly nicknamed The Anaesthetist as a teenager - it was love at first hearing. I think it might be the most peaceful album I have ever heard and does indeed achieve its aim of creating an atmosphere of English country calm. Here’s a couple of tracks from the album to get you in the mood.



Virginia Astley - With My Eyes Wide Open I’m Dreaming


Virginia Astley – Summer Of Their Dreams


To my mind it also has echoes of Delius – take a listen to On Hearing The First Cuckoo Of Spring – and contrary to what The Guardian think, a hint of Nick Drake on his most delicate songs, like Which Will.



Frederick Delius – On Hearing The First Cuckoo Of Spring



Nick Drake – Which Will


Get a nice Delius collective from here, and treat yourself to the recently released Nick Drake box set, Fruit Tree, from here.

All in all, very nice things and much better than wars and poverty and death and all that sort of unfortunate business.


Crisp Debris


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