Identity said:

It's remarkably ordinary. It appears she has lost some of her vocal strength too.

I dig it. It's better, in my opinion than "King of the Mountain" was. AlTHOUGH, I would have liked to have seen "How to Be Invisible" released as a first single over "King."

whitechocolatebrotha said:

Identity said:

It's remarkably ordinary. It appears she has lost some of her vocal strength too.

I dig it. It's better, in my opinion than "King of the Mountain" was. AlTHOUGH, I would have liked to have seen "How to Be Invisible" released as a first single over "King."

How To Be Invisible almost was the first single. Then it was supposed to follow King Of The Mountain. Oh well.

Cloudbuster said:

whitechocolatebrotha said:

I dig it. It's better, in my opinion than "King of the Mountain" was. AlTHOUGH, I would have liked to have seen "How to Be Invisible" released as a first single over "King."

How To Be Invisible almost was the first single. Then it was supposed to follow King Of The Mountain. Oh well.

That's too bad cuz "Invisible" was fresh and funky and would have made "Aerial" a little more mysterious, I think. Thanks 4 hittin' me back! I'll be lookin' 4ward to hearing "50 Words" and I've since changed my mind about "Director's Cut." I really DO like it now. Just took some gettin' used 2! Peaceout!

Cloudbuster said:

still gorgeous...

Album review from Mojo magazine.

Catch her drift
Snow as a metaphor for the fragility of youth or a woman with 'a thing' for snowmen? Kate Bush's second album of the year is much more than a Christmas record, says Pete Paphides.

Kate Bush
****
50 Words For Snow

Over three decades have elapsed since Kate Bush assured us that December Will Be Magic Again. That's her immortalised on seasonal telly extravaganza Snowtime Special, writhing on a red and gold throne beside a silver Christmas tree. "Take a husky to the ice," she coos, festively, "While Bing Crosby sings White Christmas / He makes you feel nice." Within a few days, fans of the 19-year-old singer could see her playing her Christmas single again, this time on her own hour-long BBC show. But December 1980 wasn't a terribly magical one for pop fans. The song unanimously designated to celebrate Christmas that year was one that simultaneously mourned John Lennon's death. As Happy Christmas (War Is Over) sat at Number 2, the cockle-warming whimsy of Kate Bush's festive effort stalled at 29.

In the interim, everything and nothing has changed. Kate Bush long ceased to be one of those artists whose importance is gauged by mere chart positions (though few other artists could reach Number 2 in the album chart with a set of retooled, previously released songs, as Bush recently did with Director's Cut.) And however iconic she may have become, it's unlikely that any TV executive would schedule a Kate Bush Christmas Special in a prime time slot. Neither would the increasingly publicity-shy singer want that sort of exposure. For all of that, there's a clear line linking that seasonal offering and Bush's first album of new songs since 2005's Aerial. At 53, the thrill of seeing the world transformed by a pearlescent icy blanket is not only intact; it's the Narnian portal through which 50 Words For Snow beckons us. On Snowflake, Bush is the titular protagonist, "born in a cloud", falling over forests and "horses wading through snowdrifts" yearning to be caught. A soft, recurring piano phrase and a hook of sorts - "The world is so loud / Keep falling and I'll find you" - convey the eerie world's-end silence of fresh snowfall. Drums ape a muted crescendo of hooves in powder - a calm split by the choirboy tones of Bush's 12-year-old son Bertie - credited as Albert McIntosh.

The deeper you burrow into 50 Words For Snow, the more inclined you might feel to keep a book on Jungian analysis to hand. Over the years, Bush has refracted her sensual world through an extensive index of allegories, but this one, which encompasses all of her tenth album rings truer than all of them put together. "Roll his body / Give him eyes / Make him smile for me," she begins on Misty. But Bush's fascination with snowmen isn't the sort that can be merely sated by finding the right sort of carrot for a nose. Gentle, syncopating drums and piano dance around each other as though awaiting the resolution of the narrative's anxious fever dream. Just as Pink Floyd fans are wont to play Dark Side Of The Moon over The Wizard Of Oz, there's a version of 50 Words For Snow that cries out for the pencil-shaded world set out by Raymond Briggs in The Snowman. As with The Snowman, Misty - all 13 minutes and 49 seconds of it - details a relationship that can't possibly end well. "What kind of spirit is this?/Our one and only tryst," sings Bush, halfway through, momentarily consumed by passions of a scale she barely understands, before an achingly plaintive piano phrase portends the inherent dangers of getting too close (in every sense) to a snowman. Like women who befriend death row inmates, the intensity of this affair may be wedded to the inevitability of its ending.

Her "thing" for snowmen doesn't just stop at the sort that rely on humans to give them life. It's clear from the Himalayan wind ushering in Wild Man, that Bush doesn't find the song's subject remotely abominable. In a breathy, half-whisper, she intones, "I can hear your cry / Echoing round the mountainside / You sound lonely." Here and elsewhere, the story unfolds more like a scene from an opera than a pop song: on one hand, Bush's fascinated observer; on the other, a male chorus, seemingly voicing the excitement of explorers finding mysterious footprints. Flexing her compositional muscles, Lake Tahoe also finds Bush following her muse to a place beyond genre. A Greek chorus comprised of Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood merges exquisitely into a shimmer of strings - effectively an establishing shot for the tale of the ghostly female spectre that rises up out of "cold mountain water" and calls out for her missing dog - the same dog which returns to her now-derelict home and dreams only of finding her. Everything sounds a little looser, less meticulous than we've come to expect of Kate Bush in the high noon of her life. Unlike segments of Aerial and 1993's The Red Shoes, 50 Words For Snow sounds miraculously unburdened by its conceptual weight. Its author's obsession with sonic perfection is still evident, but - particularly in the supernaturally intuitive playing of drummer Steve Gadd - you sense a new appreciation for the "feel" more commonly found on Acoustic Ladyland albums or the later work of Talk Talk.

At this point, however, it isn't the synergy of its sidemen that has had people talking about 50 Words For Snow, but its high-profile cameos. Sir Elton John is immediately recognisable as one of two souls finally thrust together after fleeting encounters in myriad past lives Snowed In At Wheeler Street. There's tenderness in the way they alternately repeat the line, "I don't want to lose you again," and by dropping down a register, Elton has rarely sounded more soulful.

By comparison, a title track featuring Stephen Fry is a blast. You might have caught him on Q.I. last month, debunking the myth that Eskimos have 50 different words for snow, though at the time he wouldn't have been at liberty to divulge why such matters were on his mind. But, over a frenetic, cantering backdrop, complete with Bush exhorting, "Come on Joe, you got 32 more to go," there he goes, calmly meeting the challenge of coming up with his own list: "blackbird braille... swans-a-melting... eiderfalls... stellatundra... robber's veil... creaky-creaky... vanishing world."

As Fry finally alights on his final word for snow, it strikes you that this is the closest that 50 Words For Snow has edged towards something that you might hear, say, Ken Bruce announcing before handing over to the traffic news. Perhaps it will also compound the wider perception that Bush has finally made her Christmas album. To stick around for the conclusion is to realise that the spiritual source of these songs comes from a different place. "I can see angels around you," she sings, on the sparsely ornamented rapture of Among Angels, sounding as delirious with love as only she can. Within a snowball's throw of the winter solstice, it's hard to imagine another record scaling the lambent reverie of 50 Words For Snow. It might have taken her 31 years, but clearly, Kate Bush never forgets a promise.

Key tracks: Snowflake / Misty / Among Angels

whitechocolatebrotha said:

Cloudbuster said:

How To Be Invisible almost was the first single. Then it was supposed to follow King Of The Mountain. Oh well.

That's too bad cuz "Invisible" was fresh and funky and would have made "Aerial" a little more mysterious, I think. Thanks 4 hittin' me back! I'll be lookin' 4ward to hearing "50 Words" and I've since changed my mind about "Director's Cut." I really DO like it now. Just took some gettin' used 2! Peaceout!

Yeah, I've warmed to Director's Cut but I still have issues with it.

Kate Bush speaks to Pete Paphides

50 Words For Snow - did the title give life to the idea? Or had the idea been lying dormant for a while?
It's one of those things I've wanted to do for a long time. I've just loved the idea of doing a sort of seasonal record. I suppose you could call it wintery, but it's more specifically about snow.

There's a looseness to this album that wasn't so much in evidence on Aerial.
Thank you! Well, I hope so! This is the first interview I've done for the record so I don't really know how people are going to feel about it.

Is there anything you felt you had not achieved on previous records that you strove to do on this one?
Um, I don't know about that. Anyone's work, hopefully, is an evolving process. What was a real biggie for me was doing Director's Cut. That was a really important exercise for me to do that, because although I think some people understandably perceive it as old music, for me it wasn't at all. It was very much like making a new record. And it was actually a really difficult record to make, but in some ways it set me up to move on. It's quite difficult to put into words really, but [Director's Cut] really was a very important thing for me to do.

A sort of closure?
No, in a way it was opening a door, and what was really nice for me was to be in that focused studio space when I started this record. So I was already there if you see what I mean.

Snowed In At Wheeler Street is about two lovers, but the story takes place over several hundred years.
I supposed it was these lovers who keep meeting up over different lifetimes, but each time they meet, they get torn apart again. I had an idea for that some time ago, but didn't start writing it until I came to this record. It started with the idea of some kind of time travelling, but then it moved into what I felt was a more interesting idea: these souls that are meant to be together but then keep being pulled apart again.

Was Elton John your first choice for that song?
Oh absolutely. Absolutely. He's one of my heroes and I just think his performance on it is so great. Don't you? It's so emotive. I'm just completely knocked out. I was so excited that he agreed to do it. It was really written for him, so I didn't know what I would have done.

That must have been a good day in the studio?
I had to do a radio interview that day. One of the problems with this record, although I managed to skirt around it, was that I was promoting the other one, so there was this overlap between the records. It was great though. He's a very fast worker, and he's obviously an extremely experienced performer. He worked very quickly.

How did Stephen Fry end up appearing on the album?
I needed someone who had a great voice of authority, so when they were saying silly-sounding words, it would still have a sense of being important. He was, really, the only man for the job - so I was really delighted when he agreed to do it.

Snowflake features your son Bertie.
Yes, there were two ideas. Firstly, the idea of this snowflake falling from the sky - this fragile, temporary creation. And Bertie still has his high voice, but it's also a fragile instrument, because soon his voice will drop and I thought there was a nice meeting of the two ideas - of the fragile little snowflake making its journey, and this voice that will soon pass.

It seems to be common to this song and Snowed In At Wheeler Street, this idea of having a destination while you're on this planet or a person you have to try and find before your time is up.
Oooh! I like that! I might write that down and use that! I suppose the song was really written for Bertie, in order to show off this really beautiful voice that he has. And I wanted to capture his high notes that he can just pull out of a hat before he can no longer reach them. He's always had a really lovely voice. I just think his performance on that song is incredibly powerful. Not a lot of people have heard this record, but boy, do people respond to his performance. I think you've got it, but also it felt very circular in its structure... this snowflake tumbling from the sky.

The paradoxical thing about Snowflake is that it conveys that eerie kind of silence that descends when it snows, and yet you do it through music.
Mmm. I like that too. Hang on, I'm going to get my notepad out!

There are two songs about snowmen on this album. Can we infer that you have a thing about snowmen?
[Shocked laughter] Well! I wasn't expecting that! What do you mean by 'a thing about snowmen'?

I don't think it's an uncommon phenomenon. My wife fancies Santa Claus.
[Still laughing] I have to admit, I love making snowmen. I mean, you have to have enough snow, and it has to be the right snow, otherwise it's incredibly frustrating, but I just love building snowmen - and again, this is the thing that I think is so fantastic about snow. It's so fleeting, isn't it? You build this creature that you put so much work into. I actually have a top hat that I've had for years, especially for snowmen. It's a plastic top hat and I keep it on a shelf, especially for when we can build a snowman. It's just fantastic stuff. Sometimes I think it's a shame that we only have that one substance. Wouldn't it be great if there was something that also happened in the summer that covered everything and was, you know... green? But it only makes it more magical that we have the one substance.

Wild Man depicts a yeti-like creature in empathetic terms.
I really do have that [empathy]. In our contemporary world, things of mystery are even more precious than they were before the internet and I think it would be really terrible if that mystery was taken away from us, don't you? It's really important.

So, what next? Have you made any plans beyond putting this album out?
Well, I'm sure you'll agree that having two records out in a year is quite an unusual feat for me. Director's Cut was a tiring process. It was a difficult album to make. And in some ways, because I was still in that focused space, it was so great to be able to start working on new material. There was almost a sense of elation [in finishing it] and the fact that I didn't have to rev up to get back into that space again was really great. Part of the drive for this record was that it had to come out at this time of year. You couldn't bring this out in the summer. And I didn't want to wait for another year. So I thought, I'd better just pull my finger out and get on with it. Now, I've got to see this one through. I've got ideas for the next [album], but right now, I've got to take some kind of break... I think I should do another [album about snow], don't you? I should call it 51-100 Words For Snow!

Unlike segments of Aerial and 1993's The Red Shoes, 50 Words For Snow sounds miraculously unburdened by its conceptual weight. Its author's obsession with sonic perfection is still evident, but - particularly in the supernaturally intuitive playing of drummer Steve Gadd - you sense a new appreciation for the "feel" more commonly found on Acoustic Ladyland albums or the later work of Talk Talk.

Me thinks me needs a tissue to clean up the jiz.

sosgemini said:

Unlike segments of Aerial and 1993's The Red Shoes, 50 Words For Snow sounds miraculously unburdened by its conceptual weight. Its author's obsession with sonic perfection is still evident, but - particularly in the supernaturally intuitive playing of drummer Steve Gadd - you sense a new appreciation for the "feel" more commonly found on Acoustic Ladyland albums or the later work of Talk Talk.

Me thinks me needs a tissue to clean up the jiz.

Yet The Red Shoes wasn't a conceptual piece of work.

And I never felt that Aerial was burderned by its concept in any way.

Cloudbuster said:

sosgemini said:

Me thinks me needs a tissue to clean up the jiz.

Yet The Red Shoes wasn't a conceptual piece of work.

And I never felt that Aerial was burderned by its concept in any way.

Neither did I but if the work is better than those two, in one critics mind, then I am ready to surrender and enjoy.

sosgemini said:

Cloudbuster said:

Yet The Red Shoes wasn't a conceptual piece of work.

And I never felt that Aerial was burderned by its concept in any way.

Neither did I but if the work is better than those two, in one critics mind, then I am ready to surrender and enjoy.

No argument there.

Another review and interview here. http://www.kate-bush-arch...ember-2011 Click on the scans to enlarge.

Great news. This will be interesting at least.

After the disappointment of Aerial I wouldn't expect much, but I just got Directors Cut and in my humble opinion I think it's her best, most consistent album ever. Although the songs were old she made them new.

If she can transfer just some of that magic to the new album then it should be pretty special.

[Edited 11/8/11 5:18am]

The acclaimed British singer has the homely, good-natured tone of a contented English matriarch. Everything will be OK, her chat suggests, if we just sit down and have a nice cup of tea.

Indeed, for an artist not short of accomplishments during the past 35 years, Bush has a rather domesticated view of what's left for her to achieve.

"I'd quite like to be able to make a decent lemon meringue pie," she says cheerily. "I've never tried, but I've watched people make these incredible creations on television so I might have a go at that one day."

Bush, 53, is being slightly mischievous, but her culinary goal illustrates how home life with her husband Danny McIntosh and son Bertie has taken precedence over the demands of the music business in the latter part of her career. Family was one of the reasons she disappeared from public view for more than a decade.

Contrast that, however, with Bush's 2011 recorded output and the view of purely domestic bliss begins to blur. Already this year Bush has released Director's Cut, an album on which the Wuthering Heights singer revisits songs from two of her previous albums, The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993).

Next month comes 50 Words for Snow, an album consisting of seven new songs lasting 65 minutes and featuring contributions from Elton John and Stephen Fry, among others.

These two volumes come six years after her previous effort, the much-lauded double album Aerial, the record that ended a 12-year drought since The Red Shoes. Why then, after such long gaps, are we seeing two Bush albums almost simultaneously?

There's a connection between the two, she reveals. Bush had ideas for a snow record before and during the recording of Director's Cut. "It was something I had wanted to do for a few years," she says, "but it was more ideas rather than something concrete. I suppose it was rumbling around in the back of my head while I was doing Director's Cut, but I couldn't really get my head around it until I got Director's Cut out of the way."

The 50 Words for Snow album is a decidedly stripped-back affair. Bush sings and plays piano. The music is stark, particularly on the opening Snowflake, on which her 13-year-old son contributes vocals, and on the closing Among Angels. The single from the album, Wild Man, is one of very few odes to the yeti.

There is minimal accompaniment throughout the seven songs, with a slightly jazzy undertow to the song Misty and a breezy electro-groove to the title track. Overall, however, the mood is ethereal, dark and appropriately wintry.

"I'd liked the idea of making a kind of wintry record for some time, but then it got honed down to the idea of focusing on snow," Bush says. "I think everyone loves snow unless you happen to be snowed in for months on end. It has a real magical quality about it. Obviously not all the songs are about snow, but there is that thread running through it."

What 50 Words for Snow isn't, Bush is keen to stress, is her first Christmas album. Having an illustration of a snowman being kissed by a girl on the cover might convince the lay person otherwise, but those looking for some festive I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday cheer should look elsewhere.

"That is one concern I had when people heard the title and when they got to see the artwork on the cover . . . that they would think it was a Christmas album," Bush says. "People don't seem to be saying that, which is great because it isn't. If they did think that they'd be disappointed."

Still, Bush fans will be pleased that her third album in 18 years will be available for yuletide distribution.

IT'S 33 years since Bush launched herself to the top of the pop world with Wuthering Heights, a song that defied the trends of the post-punk era and with its theatrical sweep announced the singer as a true original. The single and her debut album The Kick Inside were both international hits. Some of the songs on the album Bush had written when she was 13. The teenager waited in the wings for more than two years before Wuthering Heights' success, having signed a recording contract with EMI when she was 16.

After that the floodgates opened and in the early 1980s the charts were bothered consistently by Bush material, including the singles Babooshka, Running Up That Hill and Cloudbusting, and albums Never For Ever, Hounds of Love and the experimental The Dreaming.

After The Red Shoes, however, Bush felt she was misunderstood as an artist and opted to take an indefinite break from recording. She settled down with guitarist McIntosh in a house outside London. In 1998 their son Albert was born. The family now has two homes, one in Devon, another in Berkshire.

As her son got older, however, Bush drifted back to the piano and Aerial was the result. It was a return welcomed by her many fans as well as by the media, whose reviews were mainly positive. Even now Bush is amazed by the reaction to that comeback.

"Aerial was a difficult album to make because there had been such a long gap," she says. "I was at a point in my life where there was so much going on. We had a young child and we moved house and we had to try to set up the studio there and that took ages, to get it up and running. Then when we got started I had to work in short bursts because I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my son.

"Because of the long gap there was great anticipation about the album. I had done the best that I could, but it also made me slightly nervous. I could not have asked for a more positive response from people. I had the best reviews I've ever had for that record."

Such plaudits were not enough to convince Bush to immediately start work on a follow-up album, or indeed to consider performing. Bush's 1979 The Tour of Life was her only tour. She has made only a handful of appearances on stage since then and has no intention of touring again.

"It's just not something that would fit in with my life," she says. "It's very important to me to have family time. I want to be a presence to my son, not someone who's running off around the world.

"I really like making records, though," she continues. "I love the whole process. It's difficult to get the focus I need to make records, so playing is really not something that would work for me."

When Bush contemplated another comeback (not that she sees it that way) last year some observers thought it odd that she would want to go back to her early material and reinvent it. Others have perished on such a premise. Did Director's Cut happen because she felt the songs hadn't been done justice at the time?

"No, it was a personal exercise that I needed to do," she says. "I don't really listen to my songs when I've finished them. You put them away and move on. But there were odd bits. Some of my better songs are on those two records. I just felt I could do something different with them, approaching them today."

What she wasn't prepared for was how difficult the process of reshaping songs such as Song of Solomon, Deeper Understanding and This Woman's Work would be. Not the least of her problems was that Bush's voice was no longer capable of reaching the high notes she could reach in her late 20s and early 30s.

"Director's Cut was a really intense, difficult record to make, which I wasn't expecting," she says. "I thought it would be quite straightforward. I thought it would be just a matter of playing around a bit with the old arrangements, stripping it out and putting some new vocals on, but it wasn't like that at all. It was a bit of a shock because when I came to sing the songs it was just so not what I expected."

She describes the process of trying to sing new versions of her old songs as being like "I was trying to open a door with the wrong shaped key. It just wouldn't open. The keys the songs were in was the problem. Time had taken its toll. They weren't in a comfortable key for me any more. We brought the keys down and that was it. I was in. From there it was like working on a new studio album."

It was as these old songs evolved into new incarnations that 50 Words for Snow drifted into view. After a harrowing period in the company of her old songs, the idea of attacking something completely new brought Bush a feeling of elation.

AUTHOR, actor and television host Fry, presently in Australia touring with his QI stage show, tweeted in early September that he had just done "a lovely, amazing recording thing with a lively amazing musician. Wish I could say more but bound by secrecy for the moment."

"I asked him to try and keep quiet about it," says Bush. "It's difficult now with the internet not to give everything away when something comes out, whether it be a record or a book or a film." Ten days later Fry revealed his secret, an unlikely alliance between the verbose bon vivant and the elusive pop diva.

The song 50 Words for Snow, taken from the oft-repeated misconception that the Inuit have that many at their disposal, is a curious piece of whimsy. It's not a song in the conventional sense, more a nine-minute groove over which Bush counts down from 50 to one. In response to each number Fry enunciates in a number of languages epithets related to the falling white stuff.

It's a track that Bush felt could be complete only with Fry's presence. "It couldn't have been anyone else," she confirms. "What I was trying to do was find someone who had a great voice of authority. The idea of the song was that we would start off with straightforward words and then come up with completely ridiculous ones. That really tickles me because it's meant to be fun."

She says the lyrics were quite difficult to write. "I got on a roll but it took a while. I was still writing them about 10 minutes before Stephen arrived at the studio."

Also making an appearance is John, an artist who has long had an admiration for Bush and the feeling is entirely mutual. Once again she knew when she was writing the ballad Snowed in at Wheeler Street there was only one other voice to make it work. "He is one of my greatest heroes so when I was writing that song I very much had him in mind," she says. "I love his performance. He has a fantastic voice. If he had said no I don't know who I would have asked, but luckily he said yes. I was really lucky that everyone I asked to be on the album agreed to do it."

She is fortunate, also, to be able to release albums as she sees fit, whether it be two a year or three in 18 years. "So much of my time is about being at home," she says. "I love being a mother and I really love my work. I think I'm very privileged that I have what I love doing as my work. I know so many people who don't like their work. That must be terrible spending your days doing something you don't like with people that you don't want to be with.

"I'm also lucky that I can do so much of my work from home because it means I can have a good family life as well."

Home bod or not, Bush's reputation as a musical innovator remains untarnished, even by her lack of regular output. And she's happy, and a little nervous, about the imminent release of her second album in six months. "You make a record hoping that people like it, but you don't know that they will," she says. "As long as you feel like you've done the best you can, that's what you have to live with. At least you feel good about having done it."

So Bush is enjoying her renaissance at her own pace and hints it might not be another six years until we hear from her again. "I always hope it's not going to take a long time," she says. "It's not by design. It's frustrating for me that there are such long gaps. It's not something I set out to do. It's an elusive process.

"And I need to take a break because it gets quite intense. Great fun, but intense."

Identity said:

It's remarkably ordinary. It appears she has lost some of her vocal strength too.

Love it from first listen!