Yes! Weekly Feature: Music for the soul: Ashley Virginia releases new album

Written by: Katei Cranford, Aug 11, 2021

Life keeps going for electro-folk artist Ashley Virginia, who’ll celebrate her new album, “And Life Just Goes On Living,” Aug. 13 at Doodad Farm.

“The birds still sing, the breeze still blows, and life just goes on living,” Virginia said of the impetus encircling her upcoming release.

Playing like a diary on the heels of a major diagnosis—including Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Complex-PTSD—the album, for Virginia, “has been my journey of healing through that trauma and pain.”

A classically trained multi-instrumentalist, Virginia’s musical journey began early. “I’ve been singing since I could speak,” she said, “music has always been a huge part of my life.” Piano lessons began at age five, picking up stringed instruments and songwriting as a teenager.

“The best thing it gave me was a good network of talented and kind people,” Virginia said of her time at UNC-G, where she received a Double Bachelors in Vocal Music Performance and Arts Administration in 2019. “I took a songwriting class with Mark Dillon and that was great,” she added. Dillon appears on the record, along with Kevin Beardley and Ricky Perez (Virginia’s drummer, partner, and co-producer).

Engaging the recording process entirely from their home, Virginia credits audio workshops, hosted by electro-artist Quilla, for instilling the confidence necessary for a “front seat approach” to the album’s production. “I was able to really take ownership of its direction,” she noted of the process, which employed effects from the Abbey Road Plugin Collection to mix and master digitized versions of songs she recorded through an analog tape machine…