From Gardens Where We Feel Secure

About

From Gardens Where We Feel Secure is the title of the first Virginia Astley album issued on her own Happy Valley label and distributed by Rough Trade Records. The album was released in July 1983 and peaked at number 4 in the UK Indie Chart. The album was trailed by a couple of its tracks A Summer Long Since Past and It's Too Hot to Sleep, which were included on the 12" of the earlier single Love's a Lonely Place to be. The album is an instrumental collection of tone poems that describe the cycle and mirror the moods of an indolent summer day. The album began life as a series of demos produced by John Foxx at the Crépuscule studios, where he was working at the time. The album is notable for its structure, moving from dawn to dusk, and its use of natural, sound effects. In 1986, Astley and Ryuichi Sakamoto re-recorded A Summer Long Since Past, re-naming it A Summer Long Since Passed and including it in her 1986 album Hope in a Darkened Heart. From Gardens... was re-mastered and re-released by Rough Trade as a CD in 2003. Critical Reaction The album was praised by critics. Stewart Mason, writing for Allmusic, stated: Almost entirely instrumental, save for a few wordless vocals on A Summer Long Since Past and featuring little instrumentation besides Astley's piano and some subtle woodwinds, the album is a lovely 35-minute meditation built around field recordings Astley made of the ambient sounds of the rural English countryside. This description makes the album sound much more twee and insubstantial than it actually is; however, Astley is no mere ambient noodler. These nine songs are melodically rich and varied; mood pieces in the truest sense of the term.

via Last.fm

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