Kate Bush

Pencil Portrait by Antonio Bosano.

Kate Bush Pencil Portrait
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Last update: 18/08/17

Kate Bush celebrated her 55th birthday in July 2013, in typically low key fashion. In an age filled by Twitter-hungry celebrities happy to share their latest omelette eating escapades, Ms Bush is noticeable for her silence, and conspicuous absence from the red carpets of premieres, awards ceremonies or other bulb-flashing big nights out. A rare exception was made earlier in the year when she visited Buckingham Palace to receive her CBE from The Queen.

A reluctant stage performer – there would be no live performances between the tail end of 1979 and 2014 – Bush remains vaguely disinterested in the celebrity circus that is stardom, preferring instead, to develop her songwriting in peaceful solitude. If there is a problem with her approach to life, it’s ours. Let’s deal with it…

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kate-bush-makes-rare-public-1830011

Like millions, I greeted news of her comeback shows with a degree of incredulity. Thirty five years is an awfully long time, and yet in some respects, the announcement of her return to live performance was perfectly in keeping with the unpredictability of her muse. On many an occasion, the the comeback trail only serves to remind you that in the midst of nostalgia you can’t actually go back, or indeed move forward. The stakes then, were ludicrously high for Kate Bush but, irrespective of audience response – and the response in the main was wholly positive – students of her career should have been able to second guess her musical approach to the show’s set list. Attributing her decision to jettison material from her first three albums to sheer eccentricity and ‘bloody mindedness’, certain fans were left demanding their money back as the 29-song set, courtesy of ‘ticket touts’, had cost them upwards of £1,500. Bush herself, had elected to ditch the notion of touring, preferring instead to take up residency at the rather more intimate surroundings of the Hammersmith Apollo. If certain devotees interpreted this London-centric approach as a snub of sorts, it was equally obvious to the many that there would be no way of accommodating the predictably high theatrical content within varying venues. As one reviewer so aptly put it, the stage sets more than represented the scale of her ambition. In any event, footage exists of her 1979 tour so what would have been the point of recreating those age old accompanying theatrics, thus drawing unfavourable comparison with her former lissom self?

I personally made no attempt to obtain tickets, since her material after 1985 had not registered so redolently with me as the compositions on those early albums. Lord knows, I’d tried hard enough, perhaps in my own way sensing that the problem remained mine, and yet a recent purchase of her 2005 “Aerial” album still raised the same issues with her more modern compositional approach. I had checked out the double album years earlier, but for the princely sum of £4, a reappraisal seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, the passage of eight years had done little, if anything, to alter my initial impression. The material, to my ears, meanders on a sea of synth pads and sound effects and taken in isolation, or at least even with the merest of pianistic ornamentation, would fail to compare favourably with those early innovative songs. The American musician and writer Dominique Leone, perhaps best reflected my views on the album when he wrote:

‘The second disc (A Sky of Honey) seems a bit more adventurous, which is fitting given that it’s a song-cycle on the natural ebb and flow of life and the seasons. Beginning with a “Prelude” and “Prologue”, Bush eases into her most subtly symphonic music on record, backing herself with only piano and soft, modulating synth pulse. Her teasing lines, “it’s gonna be so good,” referring to the passing of summer into fall, are both poetic and playful, and fit perfectly the sense of effortless euphoria throughout the disc. Still, I might have wished for a bit more spark: “An Architect’s Dream”, “Sunset”, and “Nocturn”, despite maintaining the narrative of her concept, are a bit too steeped in uber-light adult contemporary sheen for my tastes. By the time of the closing title track, my ears are lightly glazed over, and its frail “rock” section does little justice to lines like “I want to be up on the roof, I feel I gotta get up on the roof!” At one point, Bush trades cackles with a bird’s song, suggesting she’s quite happy with her simple life as a mother and artist. Far be it from me to criticize happy endings, but in musical terms, a comfortable, even-keeled existence sometimes comes out as isolated and ordinary art.’

The full review – in which the writer is even less complimentary about the first disc – is available via:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/1181-aerial/

Recommended listening

The Kick Inside (1978)

Soaking up classic literature, and her elder brother’s eclectic collection of folk and prog-rock records, this combination of romance and bombast would fuel her early teenage songwriting, much of which would wind up on her debut album, 1978′s ‘The Kick Inside.’

Released in the immediate wake of punk’s brutal cultural assault, the album (and Bush’s career) seemed destined for a quick and painless death. The exact opposite of fashionable — no effing and blinding or sputum in the listener’s face – the vinyl platter opened with 20 seconds of whale-song, an album laced with erotic fairy-tales and lushly orchestrated art-rock. But it worked — massively, in spite of the seemingly improbable odds. Firing male pubescent sexual fantasies on all four cylinders, the kittenish Kate was a wildly improbable star, perfectly in tune with British music hall eccentricity. Most importantly, she was unlike anything else around.

Lionheart (1978)

Never for Ever (1980)

Hounds of love (1985)

Recommended reading

Under the Ivy : The life & music of Kate Bush (Graeme Thomson) 2014

The first ever in-depth study of Kate Bush’s life and career, Under The Ivy features over 70 unique and revealing new interviews with those who have viewed from up close both the public artist and the private woman: old school friends, early band mates, long-term studio collaborators, former managers, producers, musicians, video directors, dance instructors and record company executives.

It undertakes a full analysis of Bush’s art although I must confess I wouldn’t consider enough of her work so worthy of such investigative journalism. Much of “Aerial,” for example, simply washes over me in a rather pleasant manner yet I couldn’t recall many distinctive melodies if my life depended on it. In contrast, Thomson sees fit to discuss every crucial aspect of her music from her ground-breaking series of albums to her solo live tour, her pre-teen poetry and scores of unreleased songs. Combining a wealth of new research with rigorous critical scrutiny, Under the Ivy offers a string of fresh insights and perspectives on her unusual upbringing in South London, the blossoming of her talent, her enduring influences and unique working methods, her rejection of live performance, her pioneering use of the studio, her key relationships and her gradual retreat into a semi-mythical privacy.

A musically revealing biography, yet Bush herself remains as resolutely enigmatic by the book’s end.

Surfing

http://gaffa.org/

Gaffaweb is the ultimate resource for Kate Bush fans on the World Wide Web, boasting a comprehensive picture gallery, and a host of articles analysing each and every aspect of her professional career.