Album: Hounds of Love
Artist: Kate Bush
Artist: Kate Bush
Born: Welling, Kent
Released: September 1985
Genre: Baroque
Influenced: Prince, Björk, Tricky, PJ Harvey, Antony & The Johnsons
In between Never For Ever and Hounds of Love, Kate Bush released The Dreaming (1982), one of her most bonkers but daring albums. Although my love for The Dreaming continues to grow, Hounds of Love is still my favourite 80s Kate Bush album. She retains her experimental edge, especially on side 2, and deepens her forays into Irish folk music, but Hounds of Love still remains accessible with its first side packed full of great singles. Bush herself said it's "almost like two separate albums". To ensure her label didn't limit her studio time after the disappointing sales of The Dreaming, Bush took the creative decision of building her own studio near her family home on the London-Kent border. Hounds of Love is the fruit of 18 months in the studio and, like The Dreaming, was produced by Bush herself. Though many of the original takes of the songs were recorded with synthesizers, Bush decided to re-record them with natural instruments like strings and snare drums. This gives Hounds of Love a more timeless feel than her other 80s albums. It was also her most successful release, helping Bush to extend her influence in America and beyond. Running Up That Hill was a Top 3 hit in the UK and a Top 30 single in the US, even though it talked of a deal with God, in this case allowing a male-female couple the chance to swap places to foster greater understanding between the genders ("Is there so much hate for the ones we love? Tell me, we both matter, don't we?").
Cloudbusting is probably my favourite track on the LP, although I prefer the extended single version, with its accompanying video starring Donald Sutherland and co-conceived by Terry Gilliam. Bush plays the son of the scientist in the music video, in a story based on Peter Reich's memoirs, A Book of Dreams (Patti Smith was also inspired by the book to write Birdland). As ever, literary and film references abound throughout the album (the title track, another great single, opens with dialogue from 1957 horror movie, Night of the Demon). Hello Earth has a choir part inspired by Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, and Herzog is one of several people thanked by Bush on the sleeve of the LP (along with Robbie Coltrane). Also on the sleeve is a quote from a Tennyson poem, The Coming of Arthur, including the couplet, "Wave after wave, each mightier than the last / 'Til last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep". This is the link to side 2's mini-concept album, The Ninth Wave, a collection of folk songs and ballads that have an Irish flavour and are united by a theme of drowning (in Joyce's Ulysses he talks of the ninth wave being the largest in a repeated sequence). Bush creates a story of an Ophelia-like heroine who is slipping below the surface and away from the light. By the time that Morning Fog comes around, she's either been rescued or transformed ("born again"), and the nightmares, visitations and encounters with witches are over. It all sounds pretentious, but with Kate Bush it's worth the ride.
Cloudbusting is probably my favourite track on the LP, although I prefer the extended single version, with its accompanying video starring Donald Sutherland and co-conceived by Terry Gilliam. Bush plays the son of the scientist in the music video, in a story based on Peter Reich's memoirs, A Book of Dreams (Patti Smith was also inspired by the book to write Birdland). As ever, literary and film references abound throughout the album (the title track, another great single, opens with dialogue from 1957 horror movie, Night of the Demon). Hello Earth has a choir part inspired by Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, and Herzog is one of several people thanked by Bush on the sleeve of the LP (along with Robbie Coltrane). Also on the sleeve is a quote from a Tennyson poem, The Coming of Arthur, including the couplet, "Wave after wave, each mightier than the last / 'Til last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep". This is the link to side 2's mini-concept album, The Ninth Wave, a collection of folk songs and ballads that have an Irish flavour and are united by a theme of drowning (in Joyce's Ulysses he talks of the ninth wave being the largest in a repeated sequence). Bush creates a story of an Ophelia-like heroine who is slipping below the surface and away from the light. By the time that Morning Fog comes around, she's either been rescued or transformed ("born again"), and the nightmares, visitations and encounters with witches are over. It all sounds pretentious, but with Kate Bush it's worth the ride.
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