Virginia Astley

And you know I lie

This pure indulgent fantasy

With a baby’s mind

I crave for love

But this adult sensibility

Lets me stray

And I compromise

My life is always compromise

Oh, tell me why

It’s all a senseless lie

British artist Virginia Astley, daughter of television and film soundtrack composer Edwin Astley, is best known for an original blend of new age music, neoclassical and ambient.

After training in classical music, the composer ventured into a very brief new wave period, as frontwoman of Ravishing Beauties and on synths in Victim of Pleasure. She then set off on a solo career, releasing the ethereal dream-pop EP “A Bao A Qu” (Why Fi, 1982) and the masterpiece “From Gardens Where We Feel” (Happy Valley Records, 1983), a timeless gem of neoclassical ambient that marries a contemplation of nature with autobiographical portraiture.

Following the aborted album of new material, “She Stood Up And Cried”, Astley turned entirely to Japanese producer, composer and soundtrack author Ryuichi Sakamoto, partly moving away from the uniqueness of her previous album. Produced by her brother Jon, “Hope In A Darkened Heart” (Wea, 1986) plays out like a psychoanalytic session, immersing the listener in the composer's cryptic personality, a side of herself partly hidden by melancholic childhood memories and the evocative nostalgia they carry.

Opened by a velvety synth progression, the record begins with the deceptively titled lullaby “Some Small Hope”. Born out of a collaboration with David Sylvian, the track is torn apart by funereal lyrics that immediately make clear the concept's single-minded direction: an earthly existence long endured, a constant refuge in hypothetical hopes, loneliness as a life companion, the blurred memory of a parental figure, and the essential nature of dreaming as an escape from the world around us.

Sakamoto's production coldly mirrors the songwriter's unconscious demands, her angelic voice serving merely as a lure for the listener's ear. In 2020, a carbon-copy cover of the track would be recorded by Caroline Polachek, in collaboration with Lauren Auder.

The baroque pop of “A Father” speaks of family affection ground to a pulp, clouded by narcissism and a total absence of mutual love. Astley's soft voice constantly rises against a breathtaking choral backdrop. The synth pads towards the end hint at the emergence of a sinister, occult mystery, fascinating in its own way precisely because of that. Yet if winter were to be represented in a single song, it would undoubtedly be “So Like Dorian”: the recurring nod to Pirandello's masks, paired with glacial production, renders the composition's melancholy all too well. Astley's purely neoclassical sensibility here overshadows Sakamoto's pop-ambient production.

The billowing “I’m Sorry” stands out for the originality of its arrangement: underscored by a sinuous bassline, a faintly dubby drum machine and immersive synths, the track serves as a confessional for Astley. The Celtic mood of the song's second half – it almost feels like standing on a desolate sailing ship heading straight into a romantic sunset – vaguely recalls the artist's brief stint in the British post-punk group Skids.

“Tree Top Club” is one of those rare cases where the songwriter references real events (the Bunty competition), places (Dermoor barn, Scout Hut) and people (a certain Nana). What we're dealing with here is categorically a bleak sophisti-ambient-slowed pop, whose echo carries the listener back to the sanctity of small gestures, the warmth of childhood, and the guileless character of the story's protagonist: the singer herself.

The strength of Virginia Astley's songwriting lies in a narrative tightly bound to the mistakes of the past, a fragile memory that rules above all over the author's sensibility.

Sakamoto darkens the whole thing with a deliberately quirky, disenchanted arrangement, dominated by a slow, laborious drum machine and the chill of the synthesizers. Right after the ambient piece "A Summer Long Since Passed" - a rearrangement of the same-titled masterpiece featured on "FGWWF" - things grind to a halt with "Darkness Has Reached Its End", a devastating dream-pop piece warmed by sprawling guitars, pastoral choirs and lyrics that embrace the other side of the coin, casting some faint hope toward the future.

One way or another, "Hope In A Darkened Heart" mirrors the reflection of a broken-hearted soul, an eternal Peter Pan at the mercy of her own choices.

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07/05/2026