Virginia Wing

Virginia Wing comprises the partnership of Alice Merida Richards and Sam Pillay, whose experimental pop delivers a rich yet constantly shifting palette. Initial releases such as 2014's Measures of Joy recalled the work of Broadcast, Stereolab, This Heat, and Blonde Redhead, yet over time the music grew to embrace jazz and psych-pop alongside African and Asian influences. With 2018's Ecstatic Arrow, Virginia Wing asserted themselves as both inventive and deeply felt, while 2021's vibrant Private Life broadened their scope still more without diminishing its emotional force.

Formed in South London in 2012, the group originally comprised guitarist/keyboardist Sam Pillay, a former member of Let's Wrestle, drummer Sebastian Truskolaski, and keyboardist/vocalist Richards. Taking their name from Grace Slick's mother, the band promptly began touring, rehearsing, and tracking, releasing a single on Critical Heights and a self-titled 12" on the Faux Discx label in 2013. They next issued the full-length Measures of Joy, recorded at London's Holy Mountain Studios with Misha Hering and released by Fire Records in late 2014. The single "Rhonda," featuring an appearance by Grimm Grimm's Koichi Yamanoha, appeared in April of 2016.

As work on the follow-up commenced, Richards and Pillay pursued a more purely electronic path as a duo. Their second album, Forward Constant Motion, was again recorded with Hering and appeared in late 2016. For their next endeavor, Virginia Wing teamed with electronic experimenters XAM Duo on 2017's improvisation-based Tomorrow's Gift, which drew inspiration from Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and Holger Czukay. That year, Pillay and Richards also joined Jane Weaver for a cover of Suzanne Menzel's "It Starts Again" on Fire's Lost Library series.

To capture their third album, Virginia Wing moved to Hering's family home in Switzerland and incorporated playful and contemplative influences including Lizzy Mercier Descloux and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Ecstatic Arrow, which also included saxophone from XAM Duo's Christopher Duffin, arrived in June 2018. The following year the band released Pale Burnt Lake, a collection of abstract pieces derived from Ecstatic Arrow's tracks, as a limited-edition cassette for their U.S. tour. Pillay and Richards rejoined Duffin and took cues from artists ranging from YMO to Prince to Timbaland for February 2021's Private Life.