Virginia Astley

Victims of Pleasure

Virginia Astley was born on September 26, 1959 in Garston, Hertfordshire. She began piano at six and flute at 14, trained at the Guildhall School of Music in London and busked outside South Kensington tube station. She played keyboards in Victims of Pleasure from 1980, on singles including "When You're Young" (1980), "Slave to Fashion" (1981) and "Jack and Jill" (1982), and in 1981 formed the Ravishing Beauties with Nicky Holland and Kate St John, who recorded a John Peel session on April 14, 1982. She toured and recorded as a session player with the Skids, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Prefab Sprout, and played piano on Pete Townshend's All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982).

From Gardens Where We Feel Secure came out on her own Happy Valley label, distributed by Rough Trade, on July 29, 1983. A single, "Love's a Lonely Place to Be" (January 1983, Why-Fi), reached eight on the UK indie chart, and Melt the Snow (1985) 27. Hope in a Darkened Heart (November 24, 1986) was produced mainly by Ryuichi Sakamoto, with a duet with David Sylvian, "Some Small Hope". She made All Shall Be Well (1992) and Had I the Heavens (1996) for Nippon Columbia, where she was most popular in Japan, and later The Words Between Our Words (2006), Maiden Newton Ecliptic (2007) and The Singing Places (2023). She has also published poetry, The Curative Harp (2015) and The English River (Bloodaxe, 2018), and was writer in residence at Thomas Hardy's cottage in 2017.