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The title track is quite superb. Opening with a peal of church bells and a great sweep of multi-layered keyboards, it simply builds and builds over a relentless, plodding beat. Bush half-chants a lyric that repeats and re- iterates unconnected lines until they develop into a powerful and erotic Mantra. The debut single from the album, it repays repeated listenings if only for wondering at how someone can glue such an expansive arrangement so securely simply by moaning 'mmh,yes' at the end of each line. Draw your own conclusions from that one.

"The Fog" is similarly fascinating. Bush compares the shock of first love to a childhood swimming lesson, her real-life father intoning the haunting phrase: 'Just put your feet down, child, because you're all grown up now'.

The tune develops from Davy Spillane's solo whistles into a middle section of quite awesome beauty; Nigel Kennedy's tortuously brilliant fiddle-playing pierces a great orchestral swell.

The rest of the album, inventive though it may be, never quite matches the power of these two tracks. Much of the fault lies with the underlying tone of naivety and rural conservatism which seems to pervade the whole recording. "Deeper Understanding", a song about a child's obsession with a home com-puter is as weak and shallow as it's theme is hackneyed. And almost for the first time ever - on a song entitled "Between A Man And A Woman" - Kate displays a frighting lack of nous about love and romance. 'It's so hard for love to stay together,' she sings, 'with the modern western pressures'- she seems to be witnessing, rather than experiencing, that pressure, however.

Contrast this song with her classic "Running Up That Hill", and it's easy to wonder whether Kate - the reclusive country girl, a star since her early teens - gets her ideas from life or from some very good books.

"Never Be Mine" restores some of the faith in her extraordinary talant. It's first verse - an account of walking home through the burning stubble and seeing her lover's face 'ghostly in the smoke' - could only be plucked from real life, and brilliantly underlines the sense of a love lost in the very moment that it's won. The vocal work of the Trio Bulgarka and the mournful tones of Spillane's Uilleann pipes combine quite beautifully here.

"The Sensual World" is a highly sophisticated musical tapestry which will take dozens of listenings to unravel and appreciate. At this stage, though, it seems to lack the edge and sheer musical power of "The Hounds Of Love", and depicts an artist, who for all her will to experiment, has become just a little too introverted and self-obsessed.

Martin Townsend

Date: Sat, 6 Jan 90 21:07:18 PST
From: ed@das.llnl.gov (Edward Suranyi)
Subject: Dirty Linen

There's an article about Kate in the Winter issue of Dirty Linen, a magazine published in Baltimore. For those worried about copyright infringement, I should say that this magazine says, "Excerpts and entire reviews my be reprinted as long as credit is given to the author, artist, or photographer and Dirty Linen magazine." I intend to do that. Here's the article:

Kate Bush: In Focus

by John Anthony Wilcox

"Imagination sets in,

then all the voices begin."

-- from "Fullhouse"

Kate Bush. In the U.K. and Europe the name invokes memories of a seemingly endless string of hits. "Wuthering Heights," "Babooshka," "Sat in Your Lap," "Running Up That Hill," "Cloudbusting," the list goes on and on. But in the States, it's a different story. Here, La Diva Bush has only obtained a small, albeit devoted, audience. Her music is alternately wistful, folky, gutsy, and passionate. Perhaps it's the inability for the public to pigeonhole her into one concrete style of music that has let stardom elude Bush here. No matter. What Kate Bush the singer/songwriter/performer/producer presents has very little to do with stardom and quite a bit to do with substance and storytelling.

In a conversation I had with Kate Bush a while back, she mentioned that she seldom, if ever, wrote in an autobiographical context. She much preferred creating characters, and the songs were stories either about them or from their point of view. One need look no further than her introduction to the public -- the song "Wuthering Heights." She relates the story of obsessive love from the viewpoint ot the deceased Cathy and her beyond-the-grave love for Heathcliff. Bronte would surely find no fault in Kate Bush's homage to her timeless characters. "Wuthering Heights" was a prelude to Bush's debut album The Kick Inside. The album showcased a fragile, imaginative young woman and focused on delicate piano (played by Kate) and lush arrangements to counterpoint Bush's willowy multi-octave voice. Her sophomore album, Lionheart, was much in the same vein. Perhaps *too* much.

Lionheart came across as a somewhat lightweight Xerox of The Kick Inside but with less substance. However, for all its faults, the album did contain a few gems among the pebbles. "Fullhouse," "Wow," and "In the Warm Room" are very strong compositions, and "Wow" in particular is to date the closest Kate has come to writing about herself. This album was also backed by a brief but memorable tour that yielded both the Kate Bush: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon videocassette and the live EP On Stage. This would mark an end to a chapter in Kate's career, as the next release brought us a new and different performer.

1980 saw the release of Never for Ever. With it, Bush took a more active hand in every facet of her music -- from concept to arranging to producing, she was in on every step. The album opens with "Babooshka," a tale of infidelity, and closes with "Breathing," a prayer for our Earth. In between, Never for Ever offers a cornucopia of styles, and an impressive array of guests. Look for contributions from Preston Heyman to Mike Moran to Roy Harper (Kate would return the favor by appearing on Harper's The Unknown Soldier disc that same year). The album is full of mandolin, balalaika, bodhran, and even a strumento de porco, thanks in no small part to Kate's brother Paddy, a specialist in ethnic instruments.

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