Published on Mar 5, 1999
Kate Bush was always just a little ahead of her time. In the
nineties era of Girl Grammy Power and ethereal ectoplasmic
songstresses like Sarah McLachlan and Loreena McKinnitt, she’d be
feted and probably headline the Lilith Fair. In the group-dominated
’80s, she was lost in the shuffle, never quite finding her
niche.
And to be fair, it wasn’t completely radio’s fault. Kate’s music
is eclectic at best, spastic at worst, all over the map in terms of
both quality and content, and her voice is an acquired taste. (My
wife describes it as ‘the ritualistic torture of rusted door
hinges’, and admittedly sometimes it whines and squeaks like a
power drill on a chalkboard). I actively dislike at least one of
her CDs,
The Dreaming... and love the two immediately after it,
including this one,
Hounds Of Love.
This was a transition CD for Kate; she was switching away from
her old backup band (which included Stuart Elliot and Ian Bairnson
of the Alan Parsons Project) and her old engineer, Andrew Powell
(Kansas, Pilot, Alan Parsons, others) to her new engineer, Del
Palmer, who she would eventually marry. The CD is semi-themed, the
second half of it being one long piece, “The Ninth Wave”. The
sounds used on it were experimental, an odd mix of Celtic and
synthesizer alternative. Everything added up to what should have
been a disaster.
Surprise. It wasn’t. Stylistic ideosyncracies aside, Kate turned
out a solid, enjoyable, complex, and textured work, the best thing
she’s released so far, maybe the best thing she could -ever-
release. The CD starts off with the ethereal and dreamy “Running Up
That Hill (A Deal With God)”, the closest thing she ever had to a
hit in America, then careens into the pounding drumbeat of “Hounds
Of Love” and the powerful, dynamic “The Big Sky”. The extended
suite “The Ninth Wave” is well-constructed, with the eerie “Waking
the Witch” and “Under Ice” showing off the oddities of Kate’s voice
and “The Morning Fog” countering the darkness with a hopeful ending
to a CD that at times gets downright dark. Special note should be
given to “Jig Of Life”, as well, with the minor keyed, driving
fiddle jig that Paddy Bush, Kate’s brother, discovered on a trip to
Ireland.
The instrumentation and production on the CD is without fault.
Kate produced her own work here, and does so with a surprisingly
light touch, letting the textured depth of the music speak for
itself without too many effects or twists. The sole question here
is Kate’s voice; do you like it, or does it pain you deeply? That
is the one thing this review can’t answer, but if Kate Bush
intrigues you at all, this is the CD to start with, the CD where it
all came together.