Bernie Brooks
, February 16th, 2021 09:14
Virginia Wing talk to Bernie Brooks about music as a coping mechanism, training the press, and making a 2020 record Well, you know what? I ve been vaccinated, says Virginia Wing s Alice Merida Richards. Yeah, I got it done like last week. In the UK, they re doing it for national treasures, she laughs.
At this point, who wants to hear about 2020, the year that won t die? We re all drained and depleted. Everyone is so, so tired. And yet, here we are, in 2021, awash with pressers for records recorded during lockdown, records inevitably about 2020, about trauma and healing. Still, the COVID-19 pandemic is the first thing I reflexively bring up and the first thing we talk about as Virginia Wing - the avant-pop trio of Richards, Sam Pillay, and Christopher Duffin - get settled into their practice space for the first time in quite a while. It s the new small talk. Everyone can relate.
A Private Life Is A Happy Life? Virginia Wing Interviewed Fourth album private LIFE was their easiest to make. It was everything going on around it that was the problem.
Itâs not always easy to trust in your own process, but four albums in
Virginia Wing feel like theyâre in their groove. âIt didnât feel as daunting doing it as maybe our others had doneâ says the groupâs vocalist, lyricist and co-arranger Merida Richards of their new album s enchantingly de-linear pop. âOur previous album [2018âs Ecstatic Arrow ] felt a bit more like âok! Weâre gearing up for something!â But it ended up being our easiest record to make and so for this one there wasnât all the apprehension and fear that I felt before.âÂ
Most of punk’s sonic hallmarks calcified into cliche long ago, but if there’s one trope still able to induce the shock of the old, it’s the dissonant, direct, stubbornly wonky female vocals that animate the work of the Slits, the Raincoats and X-Ray Spex. On Manchester trio Virginia Wing’s fourth album, frontwoman Alice Merida Richards evokes their thrillingly relatable voices with her own – a jerky, unmediated sprechgesang that combines vacant.
Virginia Wing have shared their new song St. Francis Fountain .
The always fascinating group will release new album private LIFE on February 12th, through the fine folks at Fire Recordings.
New single St. Francis Fountain leads the way, and it s a typically inquisitive endeavour from Virginia Wing.
Alice Merida Richards, Sam Pillay and Christopher Duffin allow their voices to intermingle, and it s surface beauty hides some complex questions.
The three-piece comment.
âThe vocals on âSt. Francis Fountainâ are continual with an impartial surveillance - always watching, sometimes prompting or questioning, but rarely judging. Like in the way a therapist repeats your own words back to you.â