kate bush "aerial"

LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING KATE BUSH PEOPLE DIE FROM ALLERGIC REACTIONS TO BEE STINGS EVERY YEAR SO THINK BOUT THAT WHEN YOURE EATING YOUR HONEY, HONEY

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4386346.stm

interview says she did "King of the Mountain" in '96!

Best thing I've heard about it so far. Trying not to get my hopes up too high, now.

only for you kate!

you can fix that in itunes.

I have no idea how I slept on her for so long. If I discovered one day that there was a skyscraper next to my house I could not be more astounded. This will be the autumn (and most likely winter, and spring) of Kate Bush. Good things.

Wow, she gave birth to her son at 41. Not that bizarre, of course, but cool nonetheless.

3.2%

wait 12%

100% interested in party!

hmm, that NYT article used the phrase "soft jazz". well, I didn't expect her to come out rocking. i'm still looking forward to it.

"how to be invisible" is amazing.

otm!

-- cutty

360 posts new thread of EXCITEMENT!

Any Joni influence is absolutely fine by me.

Also digging the duets with the bird.

On first listen this hits me like a Robert Wyatt records, all space and voice and subdued yet gripping.

it's like in a film where a superhero has retired and is pretending to be someone else. she IS bugfuck insane!

Okay. She's bugfuck insane.

Getting a strong whiff of Stevie Nicks off of "How To Be Invisible" - what Fleetwood Mac song is it reminding me of? "Sisters of the Moon"? Think it's the "oooooohh, ooohh, oooohhh" backing vox.

Did Richard Thompson play on this? Some of the guitar work is very reminiscent. Side B reminds me of The The, incredibly.

Also: Rolf Harris!

Failing that, maybe it's not really Mick Karn playing the bass on that track?

In any case, you seem to be obsessed with Mick Karn. Jesus man, why don't you just marry Mick Karn? (Forgive me, I'm just foolin')

"Bass: Eberhard Weber, John Giblin, Del Palmer"

So the "soft jazz" involved is ECM, not Wyndham Hill.

I wonder why Karn's website says this then:

"It's been a long time but we can now confirm that Kate Bush's new album, titled "Aerial", is to be released on 7th November 2005. The first single from the album "King Of The Mountain" is to be released sooner on 24th October.

Mick Karn plays on the track "How to be Invisible" "

http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums?year=2005

Options:

A: Top 10 to 6

B: Top 5 [5 or 4]

C: number 3

D: Number 2

E: Number 1 replacing Sufjan Stevens

F: Outside Top 10

I haven't even looked for leaks of it, I'm just going to buy it Tuesday and let Kate seduce me.

Nothing overblown about it, just so understated...like soundtrack music. Shades of where she's been (Ninth Wave...even one song reminded me of the Cathy Demos) but then she slips a bit of jazz in the back door or just something a little unexpected, but still so, so subtle. And whatever that gorgeous sound is on "How To Be Invisible" - it reminds me of some other music I can't put a finger on...maybe even Fleetwood Mac's keyboard sound at times...I haven't figured out what the instrumental parts of that remind me of. Really bugged me first time I heard it. Something more recent than old Fleetwood Mac, but what is it that it reminds me of? Argh. Anyway...

This album is like staring up at this giant monolith stretching miles into the sky. We're drifting through space and Kate's at the helm of our spaceship.

AND DID ANYONE CATCH THE CONNECTION IN NOCTURNE WHEN SHE SAYS "tHE vEIL OF dIamOND dust wE'LL JUST REACH UP AND TOUCH IT......./diAMOND NIGHT/A dIAMOND sea/A DIAMOND SKYyYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"???????

IT'S JUST LIKE WHAT SHE SAID ON THE FIRST ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
"cOME UP AND BE A KITE/aND FLY A dIAMOND nIGHT/a DIAMOND KITE/DIAMOND KITE/oOH WHAT A DIAMOND!/A DIAMOND KITE/ON A DIAMOND FLIGHT/OVER THE LIGHT, UNDER THE MOON/OVER THE LIGHT/UNDER THE MOON/OVER THE MOON, OVER THE MOON........."

And doesn't it seem like a little action figure of an acoustic Lindsey Buckingham on "Nocturne"? The kind of nice little toy you could buy for a child?

PI MAKES ME DROOL. SHE'S SINGING NUMBERS FOR DOG'S SAKE.

I LOVE THE REPEAT BUTTON ON MY CD PLAYER. I'VE GOT ALL NIGHT. I CAN GO FOR FOUR MORE HOURS AT LEAST.

- "hOW to be InvISible"

"goodnight mum!"

yeah, it's obvious she's only making music for herself. which is fine.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000BHNLX0.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Look I really do feel that this album is the cure for Cancer, AIDS, secret to world peace, etc. oh my god I just realized I left the last track off when I made my CD! Oh please shoot me, I'm guilty. No, it can't be true. I shouldn't even talk. Never mind. Look, I have ordered the album already so at least I have paid for it.

I will say though, that I have absolutely NO problem with King of The Mountain now that I've heard the rest of the album. It fits in so very nicely and perfectly. It just isn't much of a "single" but then nothing on this is, and I like it that way.

I can't believe I missed the last track! Please shoot me now!

Also have strings sounded so good since the 19th century than they do on "Bertie"? (okay I trust you ILMers will point to examples, but never mind)

Somewhere during "Prologue" I realize I'm not in Kansas anymore. Further, I find it interesting that every time I hear the album it's always during "Somewhere In Between" that I suddenly notice it just does not SOUND like her, like nothing she's ever done before. This feeling continues through "Nocturne". What an acheivement!!

and then she just keeps going!

Fuck, that song kills me. The Bertie song too, I have nephews ages 5 and 3 and they are so much like that.

Top three of the year for me, for sure. And I didn't even really like the last two!

I rather like it.

I wish I could remember where I've heard that earworm blues riff in "How to be invisible" before.

Packaging fetishists like me should note that the album is presented in a tri-panel gatefold digipack (heh - I was expecting one of those clunky double-width jewel cases like The White Album and The Wall still come in).

The inner gatefold pic is washing on a line blowing in the wind which gradually morphs as you go from left to right into doves on the wing. The lyric booklet is lovely too, lots of very personal images to go with Sea of Honey (cf. Mojo interview) and lots more bird and audiowave pics in the section on Sky of Honey.

ok, Isolee could definitely lose this year's #1 spot haha! mmmm, more listens required I think :D

that's definitely a recurring theme... "mrs. bartolozzi," the KOTM video...

there's the promo sticker headline

the emperor has no clothes, guys

this album is so overwraught it's kinda pathetic, how are you people gushing?

The sheer intensity of the slowburn builds in "Sunset" and "Nocturne" and "Aerial" is just incredible.

Hello? This is Kate Bush we're talking about! Since when has "cheese" been an optional extra?

x-post exactly.

"Somewhere In Between" reminds me of Marillion's Afraid of Sunlight!

xpost

COMPLETELY otm... "naffness" is a great word, innit?

If she'd just released A Sea of Honey by itself I think I'd be a bit underwhelmed ... but... A Sky of Honey is a work of genius.

Tim OTM here, I think. (Based on one listen only, mind)

Despite the Don't Put Your Daughter On The Record Mrs Astley! moment on Sky, this could well be her greatest achievement.

"Bertie" the song is as awkward as I'd feared, the only song I actively disliked. Some other bits of Sea are a touch underwhelming. I do like the washing machine song though. And "Pi" is more genius. As others have said, Kate's not just singing numbers, it's how she sings them that's so striking.

I was trying to think of what it reminded me of. The Blue Nile? Talk Talk? And then: of course! It's worthy of Bark Psychosis.

there's a mournfulness to the whole record that belies the surface joy. it doesn't seem that naive once you look beneath the new-age stuff.

So, what of the people who don't happen to already like Kate Bush? How will this record speak to them?

otm

You want the honest truth? This thread makes me hope I never have to hear the bloody thing!

I find it hard to imagine a non-Kate fan listening to Aerial actually.

Yep

I haven't gone back and listened to her old stuff again. But I never found her cheesy before. And I am a Kate Bush fan. I agree with Jerry the Nipper re: eccentricity vs. mushy contentment. A track like Mrs Bartolozzi has that old quality for me. It's wonderful. Too much of the other stuff is bland.

Dull and insipid: a bland little drama.
Having little or no distinctive flavor: bland cooking.

I like a little irritant, a little stimulant, a little flavor, myself :)

Going back to the discussion about comparisons with earlier LPs...

Most of, say, The Dreaming was Kate identifying a character and then writing a song around her (Houdini's assistant, the wife of an Irish terrorist, etc.)

Over successive later albums, the songs have become more and more about herself, her family and loved ones, I think. Consequently, fewer character studies. Aerial is clearly her least outward-looking record yet. I can understand why people might not respond to that.

there's a word that could use a dictionary definition. pretty meaningless at this point.

And A Sky of Honey is so James/Woolf-esque it could be about anyone.

not the way i'm using it. i'm trying to challenge the taken-as-a-given belief that easy listening is bad!

apparently SOME people here needed to be reminded.

As I recall the diff b/w us Jerry is that I love Maria to bit.

I don't think these are quite the same - you could definitely picture Kate as [character] in the older songs. There's no body swapping going on here.

And A Sky of Honey is so James/Woolf-esque it could be about anyone
I dunno. It struck me it could only be set in and around Kate's house and garden, although I accept the message is intended to be universal (and I'm not sure where Rolf Harris fits in yet - is he supposed to be God-as-painter?).

Totally get the Woolf reference though ("Mrs Bartolozzi" also seemed very Woolf-esque to me).

I am glad you have not RENEGED in your view of the LP.

Did anyone else hear the Radcliffe interview last night? I was slightly touched by the people mailing him to say 'I got up and went to the Piccadilly Station HMV at 7am to buy the LP', etc.

Though I found some of her statements unconvincing or incoherent, and doing (at least, releasing) nothing for 12 years is the laziest road to being a revered legend.

This record is very much the antidote to the last two that way (which incidentally, I didn't hate at all).

She even manages to make birdsong(!) sound great (by putting it massively upfront & vivid in the mix?) which is some achievement at this point in time.

*Is this what you mean by 'easy-listening' JBR?

No, no, no. That's Coldplay's "X&Y". You have the wrong thread.

As far as blandness, I think whoever mentioned Zen had it OTM. Two sides of the same coin.

thats the type of dumb butt guff y'all usually only see on pitchfork haw haw haw

Completely missing that this really is in that (perfectly valid) emotional/musical area somehow... except, this is done RIGHT. I dunno about bugfuck insane but Kate certainly doesn't need any ecstasy.

yeah, it definitely helps if you've drunk the kool-aid.

kool-aid, schmool-aid he's just saying it's not her most representative or accessible. He probably wouldn't recommend "The Dreaming" either to a newbie!

I actually don't think this is that impenetrable or difficult at all though, I'd love to be unaware of her and work my way back from "Aerial".

Anyway, good on 'er.

Yeah, I agree with that actually. I'd far more likely recommend Aerial as a starting point than the Dreaming, though I still think Hounds of Love might be the best place to start. I'd hate to see this thread go down that road of discussion, though.

You people are funny. I could care less if it rocks. My favorite Kate Bush is Hounds of Love. Jeez, I love Brian Eno ffs.

What's unaccessible about this record? It is so not weird. Most of it would go over quite nicely in a cosmetics store.

(and ok Nick ;) I would have expected the Verve record it to have resembled (if we have to) to be the first one though!)

xposts - my mascara would certainly run! NO to the cosmetics counter.

So would lots of Eno's stuff. What's your point?

X-post - I heard M.I.A. in Top Shop a few times EAT SHIT.

No probs nick. Maybe I'm just pissed that this isn't album of the week on Stylus (and look what is! :-D) j/k

As if ibiza-trance-chillout-ness was always a bad thing! The problem with actual ibiza-trance-chillout is that most of it doesn't live up to its own ideal, doesn't try or doesn't know how to generate that sense of intensity-through-lassitude that "Nocturn" captures so effortlessly. But think of Orbital's "Halcyon + On + On" and ibiza-trance-chillout-ness suddenly becomes a huge compliment.

Yet more stuff which "Nocturn" reminds me of: the second half of the Junior Boys record, particularly "Under the Sun".

"What's unaccessible about this record? It is so not weird. Most of it would go over quite nicely in a cosmetics store. "

Yes, but saying this sort of thing only makes me like the album more - as per ibiza-trance-chillout, music which takes these casually reviled reference points and contexts and salvages something brilliant out of them should be treasured as much as records which achieve greatness by carefully complying with critical consensus - if not even more so.

Ah, but there's always something uncanny/other going on with Eno's stuff. I would so love to hear Music For Airports played in an actual airport. It would change the entire atmosphere. Can't say the same for Aerial.

music which takes these casually reviled reference points and contexts and salvages something brilliant out of them should be treasured as much as records which achieve greatness by carefully complying with critical consensus

But it doesn't salvage them--that's the problem. And critical consensus has nothing to do with it--Aerial is getting ridiculously over-the-top raves almost universally so far.

Ah, but you see the mix in trendy young clothes stores is so much more adventurous than perfumeries...

i would call it "usefulness" in the crit-theory sense rather than the practical sense ("utility"), in that easy listening can stand on its own artistic merits alongside irritants, stimulants, and 20th century gonzo pigfuck. it's only evil and bad if you let it be so, if you let your ear-conditioning position it that way. ok sure, the carpenters and the free design and a couple of exotica dudes have been reclaimed for the hipsters, but there's still a big library of "beautiful music" that it's not officially okay to enjoy yet. and because it's not 1995 anymore, we feel like that window of rediscovery (which was mostly born of ironic appreciation anyways) has been closed for a decade -- to even SAY "what's wrong with easy listening?" now is passe.

so is hitler.

sorry! wouldn't be a flame war if he wasn't mentioned ;)

What's due in Nov-Dec that can topple it now? :-D

haha - wtf. Bland can be good, witness the mighty Dan. I don't think anyone was approaching this album hoping it would rock. I was so excited to read comparisons to Joni Mitchell but unfort. I'm really not hearing anything like that.

On a boring serious note, and echoing summat I just posted elsewhere on here, Kate Bush isn't album of the week because it doens't NEED to be - millions of people are gonna buy it anyway. The Stylus AOTW isn't chosen on what gets the highest grade, but rather on the basis of what we feel deserves slightly increased exposure. But yeah, um, ulterior motives and all that. Not that I'm on a percentage; my cheque arrived from international arms dealers Thorn EMI ages ago.

As for the bland & cheesey thing some people are whinging about, I was compelled to post in the comments on the Stylus review that complaining anbout Kate Bush being cheesey was like complaining about Led Zep rocking out.

I've noticed that ILM often has difficulty coming to grips with women who make quiet music. This isn't unique to ILM, and I'm not claiming this is some sort of sexism issue... rather, that it seems to be something that we find difficult to talk about. It's all either "OMG best thing ever" or "bland/coffee table/cosmetic store" etc. Like we haven't got the language together to really articulate our reactions, to engage with this sort of thing critically.

you don't hear it in "pi," "mrs. bartolozzi," or "joanni"? which joni mitchell albums are YOU listening to??

Well, mostly 'Hejira' and 'Hissing of Suumer Lawns' and I can't say I hear anything familiar in those songs...

Personally I would like to see a Kate Bush/RZA collaboration album, half Kate's production, half RZA, guest stars Ghostface, Big Boi, Roots Manuva and Rolf Harris. That, I think, is my all-time never happen but explode if it did fantasy collaboration.

Uh, I am somewhere in between you know. I did mention that I think Mrs. Bartolozzi is fantastic. I also love the title track. I like How to Be Invisible a lot(guitar has a sense of menace). Coral Room, Prologue--I like the delicacy. The rest--bland!

All this semantic grappling with the word bland is desperate. It's a criticism in any shared language-world. Far better to argue why you don't think it's bland.

Here's an mp3 of CC singing this live on Dermot O'Leary's radio show:

http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3GL3RPGM5LLMC1PMI0QEIWPKMK

(it's 22 minutes long!) (it's not very good!)

hehe, that's what I love in 'Nocturn', you're not quite sure if she knows exactly what she's doing or just stumbled across it quite by accident! That's probably me building up my own mystique/myth around her to add to all the others though.

I have to say this didn't even hit me full-on until last night (w-O-w!). I can understand the hyperbole now. I still feel like I haven't really got to grips with the first side though! Perhaps because it's the darker, dourer, slightly depressing preparation needed to make side two seem so absolutely transcendecent. But I think the production is a bit off/proving a barrier for me on some tracks there also. I would have liked more outright tunes too I suppose.

To think about the music as bland is really just to say it isn't melodramatic, as far as I can see. But there's room for the still and the reflective in the world equally to melodrama. The fact that Pop tends to deal with the latter gives examples of the former more value, to me.

dude, i posted the dictionary definition! I don't think it was "i don't like it/it isn't like the things i enjoy"

but now that i know that the aesthetic qualities i cherish are just a hangover from Romanticism, I stand corrected!

xp: dictionary.com is the last word on what we've all agreed words mean

Dull and insipid: a bland little drama.
Having little or no distinctive flavor: bland cooking.

That's a group of different meanings, some implying criticism, some not. No matter how much you insist, simply calling something bland still means it has qualities you don't value, not that those qualities are automatically bad or valueless.

nah, what's depressing is Relativism for Dummies

simply calling something bland still means it has qualities you don't value, not that those qualities are automatically bad or valueless.

Qualities like "dull," "insipid," "little or no distinctive flavor" are negative.

Jeez, tell me I'm full of shit, tell me it's not bland, explain how it redeems blandness through a subtle transfiguration... anything but this "you don't like it/i do" crap

anyway, i'm getting to be a bore, crashing the party and all. enjoy

I don't think it's bland, if you're using bland as having negative connotations. It's less [ ] than Hounds of Love and The Dreaming, although I'm not sure what word(s) need to go in the square brackets yet.

Basically, it's the album of a middle aged genius rather than a genius in her mid twenties or her teens.

I'm not so sure about "The Dreaming" being a bad album for introducing newbies...In a world where the early 80s post-punk scene has become a widely recognized source of inspiration for current music, The Dreaming doesn't feel as weird as, say, the b-side of Hounds of Love.

look at The Dreaming - first single sat in my lap mostly in 5 4; other singles featuring rolf harris on didgereedoo (sp?) and no discernable time signature + Kate's ridiculous aussie/cockney accents; songs written from the view point of viet cong fighters and IRA terrorists; Kate braying like a donkey - definitely her "she's gone mad album".

Whereas with Hounds of Love, Kate's recently said she kind of rolled up her sleeves and said to herself re: EMI's dismay "Right, shouldn't produce myself should I? We'll see about that you mothers" and unveiled one side amazing pop music and a second side of songs, non of which were potential singles but each of which is less weird than, say, Houdini, or Get out of my house, or Leave it open...

I think with those two albums, as well as with The Kick Inside, Kate had something to prove. I get the feeling that she feels that a lot less nowadays artists are forming an organised queue to get on her didick (so to speak). Maybe that's the tiny thing that's lacking about Aerial.

However, I think The Red Shoes did have "struggle" or whatever we're going to call it, despite not being as successful as Aerial.

Oh, and I kind of liked the Tori album - had at least three great tracks on it and I think it's an interesting theme if not particularly well handled. I didn't want to open that can of worms, but I also wonder if Kate knows who Tori is?

The need for Drama, really, tempestuous struggles with Others, or Nature or the Self, whatever. But what's interesting is that Kate is definitely a Romantic, and I think Aerial is a Romantic album. It doesn't lack for drama -- "We stand in the Atlantic/ And become panoramic" is plenty dramatic -- but the drama doesn't come from opposition. It's a drama of, what? Belonging? Transcendence through domestic contentment or something, becoming part of something larger.

On the other hand you have "Oh so romantic, swept me off my feet"; sky of honey is quite clearly in a vein of English romanticism which encompases Shakespeare, Vaughan Williams, the Pre-Raphaelites and, er, Adam Ant.

"pianissimo...
pianissimo..."

There is a kind of transcendence. I heard the album last saturday evening and the birdsong at the end of the album somehow merged naturally with the birdsong coming from outside of my window; couldn't help thinking of Morrison's Doom Patrol and "The painting that ate paris".

the tori album had a couple of nice songs ("sleeps with butterflies" and "toast").

kate knows who tori is... when tori was at the height of her popularity kate did an interview with some bitter invective aimed at her redheaded stepchild. i think it was a little unsportsmanlike of such an otherwise classy dame.

Meanwhile, the 1-year-old contingent of my household gives the album thumbs up. He did his little butt-bounce dance during "Pi" and "Joanni," and then during the keyboard-string intro to "Bertie" he actually stopped what he was doing and picked up his ukelele to strum along for a few seconds.

"pi" would be a fantastic way to teach him math! hold up flash cards with the various numbers while he sings along.

kate bush, homeschool tutor.

I'm thinking out loud now. I think this is a lot of Aerial's current appeal to me, the formal marshalling of the kitchen sink. Maybe it's also a sort of answer to bugged out earlier. It's not bland, it's self-disciplined.

Ariel teaches the secrets of nature through dreams and shows the place of lost objects - reveals occult and mystic secrets through meditation - rises up sublime though forms - promotes a strong and subtle power of mind - makes you act with caution - is able to resolve the most difficult problems through inspiration and takes decisions in the right moment. Ariel awakens in mankind the interest for meditation and for research of all kinds of mystic and secret teachings - He allows mankind to discover that clarifying the mind and spirit brings advantages. He works in the service of spirituality: being useful for the fellowship, using the best technologies like informatics, tools of radiology, techniques of trans communication and creates connections for us to access that help us to be able to feel high energy frequencies. (Book of the 72 Angels of the tree of life)

The complete number and hidden codes: 27.7.7.27 = 4 x 7 = the 7 pillars of God in 4 directions of heaven and inside the 4 elements (the reason , Ariel is found in and with all elements), 4x7= 28 = 10 ( the energy number of Ariel and double 5, the Mother like in heaven so on earth) and 14:14 ( 14 Ariel's number of chances ) / left 22, the master number of spirituality, 22= 11:11 the doorway to the heavens for fallen humanity, Ascension to lost spirituality, Homecoming to the origin of God, to Unity in all and through all/ 27+26+27= 70 =7 x 10 again the 7 pillars of God through the double 5 , the Mother like in heaven so on earth. This explains the multidimensionality of the Being Ariel.

washing machine... washing machine...

Wow this hadn't occurred to me but it's spot on.

i keep coming back to the "honey" theme and alchemical dualities (sun/moon/sea/sky/adult/child). i could just be seeing something that's not there.

"Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is. Y'know, skin cells, the smell. In a way you could kind of [gesturing to the floor] put out a T-shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of socks and you've almost got a person there, haven't you?"

I think this is actually pretty accurate, despite the reviewer only getting two listens.

Is this true?: "TO SUM up: Kate Bush is the greatest living British artist in song and this is her masterpiece."

A day ago I was thinking that Aerial isn't up to HOL or The Dreaming, but the more we discuss this (and I listen to it), I'm beginning to change my mind...

If this is her Maria then, yes, I'll like it a lot more than Jerry.

My first impression is that her voice is now an astonishing thing. Blimey.

and how.

Go ahead, enlighten me then. Name one artist that came before Kate Bush that sounds as much like Kate as Tori does. Anytime I've ever heard Tori it's blatantly obvious to me what's going on there. If it's not to you, well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I also think it's quite sad that most folks in the U.S. are very familiar with the copy and not the original.

They even took Kate off the Mojo cover here and put Hendrix in her place. Despicable! Come to think of it, I'm gonna count to make sure all 16 pages of that interview are in this damn thing. Hmm. Well there's 14. Did I miss out? The Kate Bush News site said it was 16 pages. I'm not counting the ad pages, though, which total 3.

Yes, this is absolutely true.

The idea that Tori ripped off Kate is kinda offensive to both I think as it basically implies "there isn't enough space in this very broad category of music for more than one artist". Never mind that they're different vocally, lyrically, in the way they play piano (which Kate doesn't do on the majority of her work anyway!), in the sort of emotions they evoke, in the type of hooks they go for, in the genre allusions they like to make, in the types of stories they like to tell. If anything it's Tori who should be bitter and twisted about people having ripped off her. Like, if you heard a Tori song and said to me "that's just like Kate Bush", I would think, "man, have you even listened to Kate Bush?" Never mind listening to Tori...

The other reason it surprises me is that there are few artists who make albums as different from eachother as these two - when people say "Tori ripped off Kate", I think, "which Tori? Which Kate?" People should be specific here as, again, conflating The Dreaming with The Sensual World or From The Choirgirl Hotel with Scarlet's Walk makes me think that we're not talking about the music in question with nearly enough specificity.

And finally: listen to Happy Rhodes if you want to hear an artist who has made sounding like Kate Bush her life's work.

i gave you that information.

dancer with bruised knees is maybe one of the most beautiful records of its ilk (if it has an ilk: french-canadian folk, turn-of-the-century style ragtime piano ballads, supersweet harmonies).

I like Aerial a lot -- these are fantastic songs & her voice is just impossible. the fact that the production comes off so initially conservative just makes the weird moments thirty times weirder -- like hanging out with a fellow lunatic friend you've known for decades, & their mad glare peeks in flashes but it's all the more powerful coming from someone when their kids are running around in the kitchen

I'm never going to get over the _sound_ of The Dreaming, and the fact that her sound only got weirder when she started producing herself completely...

restraint
restraint
restraint
flash of low heat
quick dissipation
restraint (7x)
"ok wtf"
restraint
whispering in french

I love the McGarrigles, but I don't have Bruised Knees. I guess I should.

looks like i'll have to ysi this one for y'all. i'm dying to hear it again!

warning... this is 2 cds, so be patient cuz the download will take a while. approximately infinite universe is one of those "if you don't have it, this should be remedied immediately" albums. i.e., worth the wait.

http://s48.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2EA5FPT38W3E11KAMGJOAWZ0ND

Towards the end of the film when it starts going into fairy tale mode (and loses most of the critics) a lot of these themes start coming up. Also the idea of freezing a boy at a certain age so he will never grow old... hmmm.

Thoughts?

http://s44.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1T8FWFRE82AZ417EK7LQ3FCSR8

gypsy and milton will love this.

I've always been slightly curious about Tori Amos - y'know, sonically there's a chance they might be interesting records from what I've read, liked a couple of singles - but she doesn't half put me off in interviews. And, to be honest, if I brought an Amos CD home from the library I'd have to hide it; the missus hates Kate Bush with a passion only tempered by her knowledge that I'm a fan - with Tori Amos there's no check on her loathing at all.

I think I might like "Little Earthquakes" though, it seemed less straining/pretentious in that way from what I recall of it. god knows if I can get used to Joanna Newsom I can't be that inflexible!

Can't say I'm a major Tori fan, but if you like Kate I can't see why you would hate Tori. On her last album I really like Jamaica Inn (very Kate), The Power of Orange Knickers (not really like Kate) and Sleeps With Butterflies. Her voice probably isn't as good as Kate's but I find her intonation interesting; I find her piano style more integrated than Kate's - she's probably a better player technically.

Although with that said if The Beekeeper is Tori's Aerial then that really does illustrate the gulf in talent between them (although Tori didn't take 12 years to write The Beekeeper).

swoon @ your Ono posting btw. my favorite is fly but I put on A.I.U. for the first time in a while when you posted it last night... still kind of allergic to Elephant's Memory but her lyrics on that album are incredible

kate bush is a far better self-editor and a more creative producer. but if you look at the best work of each, the gulf in raw musical/songwriting talent between them isn't as wide as people insist.

But having still never heard a Tori full-length I'd be arguing from a position of some hi-falutin' ignorance... has the best of Tori really come anywhere near something like "Cloudbusting"? Really?

http://southsidecallbox.com/ilx/tori%20amos%20-%20hotel.mp3

and, wow that is a slightly bizzare track! However, it still contains nearly all of the things that I just don't 'get' about her :( even if it sounds very different to anything I've heard of her before.

Wouldn't mind hearing another though! For the wtf-ness if nothing else.

What are these incidentally?

Also I figured out what the first part of "How To Be Invisible" reminded me of - the guitar sound reminds me of the first Disco Inferno album "In Debt" - one of my all time faves, for sure.

'Pretentious' is never a great term to describe things with, far too loaded at this point, but I do find her maddeningly obtuse. Her songs, even the simpler examples I've come across, seem to work absurdly hard to obscure any possible sense of straightforward, immediate meaning. Now I like a challenge sometimes, but with Tori there's just no 'bait'. Nothing to convince me that it's a journey of discovery worth travelling.

I had similar feelings about Joanna Newsom at first, but I got a small sense of the poetic, and the humour from her music, before I got to unravelling some of her lyricisms. With Tori, I just can't recall a single time I've wanted to bother, when so much of it seems both nonsensical AND calculatedly arty, just generally unpleasant and pointless.

I might still like non-obscure Tori though (Little Earthquakes).

xposts - I love Joni myself, and this is Kate's most Joni-ish record IMO. But yeah, Kate is still somewhat more unique a figure in song.

Maybe 'cos the Kate record being here and fabulous means I've chilled out about it?

(okay, for the defence: Winter, Father Lucifer - noted. Just please god don't make me have to listen to that "Hotel" track ever again!)

Was Kate influenced only by female artists? Not bloody likely.

Also, what in the hell has Nina Simone got to do with this, etc.

i like her best when she's at her most obtuse. as she's gotten more straightforward, she's also gotten more pedestrian.

re tori's voice, it's very american (hearing her marylandisms always makes me smile; they remind me of my relatives who live in one of the towns where she grew up). she has a buttery country lilt that kate doesn't have -- a '60s/'70s nashville girl-singer thing. and at times i also hear joan baez circa 1960, the baez of "silver dagger," "east virginia," "all my trials," etc.

no, i know. if i were to name and describe and post YSIs of ALL the artists kate bush reminded me of i'd never have any life whatsoever!

If A Coral Room doesn't move you are you a piece of stone?

they don't have a lot in common musically but simone is an early example of another willful, iconoclastic, perfectionistic, piano-based singer-songwriter.

i am happy. but i'm a "larger picture" kinda gal. sue me.

it's all so potentially wrong on paper, yet it puts the sunshine in my heart so hard that I care very, very little about getting embarrasingly hyperbolic in it's defense.

And yes, I think the restraint, gloss and 'conservatism' that's been picked up on w/r/t Aerial is very much part and parcel of it's femininity and hasn't really been very well explored yet.

I actually regret that they/she decided to split this release up into two CD's. I want it on one continous thing, but the only way I can accomplish that is to get it all on one CD with King Of The Mountain left off. It's annoying, but I guess I'll have to cope because I can't take the alternative. This awful pause after a Coral Room while my CD changer changes. I'll skip the "Changes", Bowie, lad, sorry, know what I mean?

Is it just me who finds it completely psychedelic? The flowers are "melting"? "What kind of language is this"? And when her laughter becomes one with the birdsong (and nature itself)... I find it utterly astounding meself!

And the apex of the "big rock moment" ... in Nocturn too, it's all in the vocals.

I'm beginning to think I'm going to be exploring/learning to understand this record for months to come yet.

Yes this is a great track.

One thing that Tori and Kate share actually is that their music seems to come more sharply into focus when their lyrics become more obtuse. As JBR notes, Tori has become a lot more straightforward lyrically over the past few years, and simultaneously a lot less interesting, even if the straightforwardness is definitely a good thing from a lyric-booklet perspective. I think this is true for Kate too, although perhaps more co-incidentally. The diff. b/w them is that Kate's personal songs actually feel more universal than her character studies/book reports, which are more specific and situated (and better, mostly). The opaqueness of the lyrics, when they are opaque, seems like a necessary component of the fact that they're an insight into the mind of another (an other other - not Kate).

Whereas Tori veers from being on the verge of cathartic personal revelation to absolute free association, which generates more friction/frustration - "I thought I knew what this song was about but now I have no clue whatsoever."

Over my dead body.

If you use iTunes, you can program a few tracks (Coral Room, for example) to end a few seconds before they officially do -- this simply shaves off a extra seconds of silence -- with the result that the entire album can be burned onto one CD.

Just sayin'.

http://s44.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=14IKP1QMVUOEV1RSGIND4JODWV

Especially since it's important to keep playing Aerial over and over and over and over.

As for iTunes, I'll look into it, thanks brittle lemon.

"What a lovely afternoon..." etc. etc. etc. over and over and over etc. etc. etc. play the album over and over and over and over to the exclusion of everything else over and over and over and over. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Also I'd like to correct myself about what I said earlier - on the last, title track Aerial, she really is singing that she wants to "get up on the roof". So does that mean she wants to go fly with the birds or what?
Is she wanting to be a bird?

Just wondering.

Weakest link? I think Joanni - although it's interesting that Kate seems to be exploring a modal basis for the melody here, the lyrics are kind of embarrasing, and I think this may be the track the critics were thinking of when they described the production as dated.

MMMMM MMMMM MMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THe original YSI way back on this thread of the "King Of The Mountain" single was shorter than the album version. This is how I burned it all on one disc - by replacing the album version.

Also, Nero supports overburning, and I successfully used that as well.

Thanks for the Ono and McGarrigle. Much appreciated as I have albums by both but not those.

The newest thing I have picked up from the album is that "How To Be Invisible" specifically references 4-dimensional theory, I refer y'all to Rudy Rucker's excellent book THe Fourth Dimension: A Guided Tour Of The Higher Universes. All that stuff about folding up on dotted lines and mirrors is straight mathematical 4D theory (which essentially adds "in/out" to the left/right, up/down, and front/back directions). Very cool.

if she and alton brown mated, they'd have the world's hottest baby.

Yesterday A Coral Room really hit me hard, started to make me really sad, even though I've probably heard it 40+ times already. That "ho ho ho hee hee hee" might just be the highlight of the entire album.

I think I just started to get sad, realizing this album wouldn't be new forever, that eventually I would have to move on. That I could only play it for so many countless hours and then eventually I needed silence. I'm still in shock really, just in the sense that Kate Bush was never really supposed to come back. It still seems very unreal to me, a bit disquieting, some unexpected rite of passage. I associate her with my youth in a way I'm not sure I do anyone outside of oh I don't know the Smiths or something.

Yes the humming on Joanni goes a long way toward redeeming it. It's like a reminder that yeah she's beautifully crazy as a loon, and we wouldn't want her any other way.

Well you know what? I think that's the missing link for me, thanks! Nero does have overburning capacity, you're right, but Nero is on my other computer, so I should try it that way.

I'm trying to imagine hard what kind of impact "Aerial" might have on a much younger version of me (one that exists in 2005), because it would without doubt have one, probably life-changing, for the emotional power alone, but I'm completely confused as to what cues I would take musically from it. Soft Jazz? Latin Traditional Dance? Modern Classical? Peter Gabriel and then on to Prog?

I *like* this spread onto two discs. I think I would have had more difficulty trying to absorb this as one great whole. As I've played the second part so much more, it's been a pleasure to go back and get intimate with the first part in a (almost) completely separate frame of mind after feeling like I'd taken everything I could from "A Sky Of Honey" for the moment.

I think the only problem I really have with the break up into two discs was that it made me feel A Coral Room a little more intensely than I ever wanted to.

King Of The Mountain's fun reggae guitar seems more worthy in the scheme of things each and every time I play it, I do know that!

Delightful to meet someone for whom Red Shoes was the only thing you caught as it happened! I can imagine what that might have been like and it's wonderful. My first year of high school, in fact within months of me starting at my big new high school, this song came along on the radio called "Running Up That Hill", and it was all....downhill (or uphill?) from there. I sang her songs in talent shows at my high school, but that's really going too far to admit now isn't it?

Glad you mentioned Peter Gabriel, actually, as there's a part of this album that I recently decided *specifically* reminds me of Gabriel though I can't quite pinpoint it now, I'll have to try and spot it again next time round.

I need that space after "A Coral Room" I'm glad she gave it to me :O

Apparently these might be Marimbas. Anyone?

In "Sunset," the wavery melody of "In a sea of honey/A sky of honey" seems so familiar, and I'm thinking it might even be from an Arab source. A lot of it seems very familiar in a way, and I don't know if it's just reminding me of similar things, or if I am recognizing specific borrowings, or if it's just that sometimes good music can seem almost immediately familiar.

I don't want to dismiss Disc 1, but the second disc is just killer.

heh, i love that too.

another fantastic bit, in "somewhere in between": the hard "d" sound separating "and" "night." it's more aspirated than vocalized, but it gets its own separate place in the line, like a quick snare hit.

For a 'bland' :-P record this has one HELL of a number of odd ways of getting completely under my skin, it's quite physically compelling.

There's a fantastic sentence in a Denton Welch short story describing children who "smell of their clothes, and of themselves" or something like that. (It's more fantastic than what I'm remembering of it.)

This is going to be the one that drives me crazy trying to pin it down. It's pretty fantastic.

I kind of like the flamenco lite, but I don't like real flamenco much.

That "and night" you were talking about, too, there's something about that type of phrasing that sounds so 60s to me, so 60s movie soundtrack theme song, you know?

that whole passage (starting at around the 1:08 mark, ending on 1:34 with the very clean, nicely timed cut-off of the hard "t") is an object lesson in how to sing well if you want to "sing well."

Do it, Jody! Do it!

"the valley"
http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0APXYWFQD60E51LALDSAUMJMJJ

"love is everything"
http://s49.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1EGA3DHXZKOT41KICQ7I01MYVX

these arrangements aren't as handsome as jane's, but k.d.'s voice conquers all. remember kids, "bland" is the watchword for '06!

i'll just bet!

Freaking out a little.

The twists and turns in "Sunset" (especially at the beginning) really amaze me.

Why a song for Elvis/TO Elvis? What exactly might she have been trying to get across there and why?

Sadly I think I might've outgrown Pi/Mrs. Bartolozzi/How To Be Invisible, now. It seems to me it's only when Joanni starts that I start to get excited and realize the party has really begun in earnest for the rest of the album. But then of course, after the rest of the album has run its course (much like the she sings that the colours have run), and you finally go BACK to the sky from the sea, after all that drama and build up, then things have a new meaning and it gets very hard to figure out what's going on. When you've been through that last title track, then things look a lot different when you play the Sea of Honey again, and forget, momentarily, that you ever knew the Sky.

Did I mention that Donovan is playing here the weekend after next, and I still can't decide if I'm going to go or not?

That's right. Kate Bush IS HIPPIE MUSIC, YA FUCKIN' HIPPIE. STOP SHAGGING THE CORPSE OF POST-PUNK FOR A MINUTE, WILL YA?

http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/

"COULD BE HONEYCOMB"

THAT I KNOW THAT GOD IS GETTING READY TO BROADCAST TO MY STEREO
FOR THE NEXT COUPLE F'N SONGS!!!!

"THE most BEAUTIFUL irridescent BLUE..."

I like k-punk's review, I think he's mostly right but I like the first disc more than he does. I understand the adoration of disc 2, but I listen to the first one almost as much. There isn't actually anything I dislike on the album, I've yet to skip a track. I kept expecting the initial glow of New Kate Bush to wear off, but it's just gotten more luminous.

This is why living in the U.S. makes me sick.

(And Hilary should definitely do "W.H." and give it the disco mix it's always begged for.)

ever hear the wuthering heights disco concept album by ferrara?

http://www.discomuseum.com/Ferrara.jpg

Or maybe it's more like "Hi Eberhard, when will you be in England next time? In seven years? OK!". Could explain a lot.

jbr, do you actually own every strange record in the world? (I just read the o holy night thread as well.)

Haha. Yes, it does, since it's more middlebrow fake-opera.

i don't technically OWN aerial yet.

*rimshot*

Please. It's resolutely highbrow fake-opera.

Yeah, I know what you mean, even though I was just complaining about weird. The first time I read someone point it out, I just dismissed it: "She doesn't imitate Elvis in that song!" But then when someone else mentioned it casually, I paid some attention.

Okay this is really pushing things, but that whistling at the end of How to be Invisible reminds me of the whistling at the end of Heathen Earth. Also, there's something at the end of the second disc (I think), some rhythmic laughing that makes me think of "Adrenalin" but the connections are pretty tenuous. (I see know reason to think this is a secret Genesis P-Orridge tribute or anything.)

Also, what is the deal with the cover? Apparently it has a secret message of some sort and I see something that looks like it could be writing. If I still got high I'm sure I could spend many productive minutes (which would seem like hours) trying to decipher it. (I kind of wish I could listen to this album high just once. Well, I'm sure it could be arranged, but I'm not sure it's worth messing with my poor sinuses--plus I might be interviewing for a new job soon, and I'd hate to lose a chance at a job thanks to one indiscretion after several years of being totally pot-free.)

About the cover, yeah I read people think it has some hidden stuff on it - someone said there's a K.T. Bush Band logo to be found on it. Well I'm embarassed to say I don't think I know what a K.T. Bush Band logo looks like so I guess that proves that technically Kate Bush is not or has not actually been my favourite artist/band until now so I can't be expected to know literally everything about her.

But the sleeve just looks like a waveform on a background of sunshine to me. Where are people seeing hidden things?

I could have sworn it was just the surface of a lake or something but I see the letters "K a t e" now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's right before...oh one or two of the first two tracks. MUST FIGURE IT OUT IMMEDIATELY....You fans out there know what I mean? Is it "Saxophone Song" that starts that way, because I really love that song.

STUART ELLIOTT PLAYED DRUMS EVEN ON HER FIRST ALBUM HE'S THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT HAS BEEN ON ALL OF HER ALBUMS, PROBABLY.

Also the first Cockney Rebel album (which Stuart Eliott played on) called "Human Menagerie" (yeah right just TRY to find it on CD - see told you you couldn't) has songs that actually rather specifically reminded me of Kate Bush when I first heard them, which was kindof weird. I realize Stuart Elliott was "only the drummer" but it still seems strange to me that of all music in the world, the only music that ever reminded me of Kate Bush was the first Cockney Rebel album.

Look, this new Kate Bush is the best thing to happen to music since the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, and you are either ON THE BUS or you are NOT ON THE BUS, man.

Kate Bush's music is godly, that's what I'm trying to say here.

it's hard to describe why, but i totally understand what you mean.

sky of honey is so beautiful, rolf harris and all.

I am so thrilled and excited, thanks a million.

Kate Bush"

with "aerial tal" on loop

Madonna?

As for the first disc: "King of the Mountain" DOES get better the more I play it, and like "A Coral Room," creates a sense of unfathomability thanks to its layers of murk and texture. My favorite tune is probably "Bertie." It's hard to write an unsentimental song about and to one's child; she not only gets away with it, she raises the standards.

It's early here and I haven't had my first cigarette, so I apologize for my own murky post. To me the second disc only takes off on "Nocturne" and the title song, and it's interesting how they don't climax any more convincingly when preceded by a series of tunes which are supposed to prepare us for said climax. The album might be stronger if she shelved most of the second disc and appended "Aerial" and "Nocturne" to the first disc. This, of course, would be a maddeningly diffuse Kate Bush album (very much like the still-underrated The Red Shoes), but considering her current rate of production I'd accept a frustrating miscellany over a spotty collection which aims for flow and gestalt and a clear statement of purpose.

Nothing! You didn't share it with the rest of us! ;)

Alfred, you are usually OTM. What went wrong here? Put those cigarettes down! The oxygen will set you free!

While I initially agreed with you about Nocturn being the stand out track after a few more days of listening the rest of the songs started to come into their own.

Sunset really makes me want to hear Kate do more jazz - "Who knows who wrote that song of summer?" is one of the most beautiful lines she's ever sung (up there with "I still dream of Organon"), and the transition to the flamenco section is so... Kate that it somehow works. It's in my top 5 Kate songs now, while I'm not sure Nocturn is anymore.

Prologue (Kate singing in Italian, drums like raindrops) and Architect's Dream (the contingency of that synth line behind her) are both amazing too - even Somewhere In Between and Aerial are growing on me.

I think part of the point of Sky of Honey is that there's no climax. The individual tracks don't really have a climax, and where you'd traditionally expect the big bang (the guitar solo in Aerial) it's kind of muted, low in the mix and anti-anthemic (compare the guitar solo in Wuthering Heights for example).

As for a clear statement of purpose - I'm not sure if that's what's intended.

her piano playing is especially beautiful there, innit? the genre shift keeps her on her toes, makes her less prone to doing those "default kate bush go-to patterns and colorings."

see what i said above about aerial being a more inward-looking record. you have to retreat into the negative space to find the "big" moments rather than reaching out into the ether.

actually I was thinking more of her voice, from the wonderfully subtle vibrato she puts on the comb of honeycomb in the first line, to the aforementioned blackbirds at dusk line to the way she holds blue - more than the piano I think she lets the bass play a really important role here, although I had quite honestly not even considered the fact that the pianist on this track is Kate - you're right, she really is reaching outside herself on this.

It's jazz with strings, it's not even jazz but a kind of bastard bossa nova/flamenco hybrid which sounds like the worst kind of cheese on paper but sounds absolutely, stunningly beautiful. It just works, don't ask me how, "inauthenticity" and all.

This is coming from someone who has Aerial on an HD minidisc back to back with Monk and Coltrane live at carnegie hall. I would love to hear proper jazz musicians do something with this song - just a great melody and chord sequence to play with, with the flamenco transition as well - like something Miles or Ellington might have done.

you're right (sorry, I don't know how to put quotes in italics btw) - one of my first thoughts when listening to this album is that Kate really doesn't care about winning any more fans now. It's not like Hounds of Love where she came out all guns blazing to storm the charts. I can't see how someone who doesn't already know Kate will listen to Aerial and get it - it's kind of like The Dreaming like that - you have to want to kiss before you can get the key.

looking for climax is possibly a very male way to listen to Aerial - I think she's kind of moving beyond that and it's incredibly exciting, this kind of experimentation being so highly achieved.

gypsy's analysis of the statement of purpose is OTM - there's a kind of primitive romantic elevation of the natural to the level of the religious, but I think the album succeeds because there are so many motifs and levels of association that Kate puts out there and refuses to close down, even if she doesn't develop them the way some would like. That's why I think she's one of the masters of the album as a form or art. Then again, I'm clearly biased...

love the interplay between the piano and bass on "prologue" too. still figuring out how to word what it is i'm hearing -- sort of a duetting/trading-off between those single-line piano arpeggios and the hiccuppy bass note-clusters that weave through them.

(please someone tell me how to do the italics!)
Kate's bass arrangements have always been on point - Eberhard is crazy on Mother Stands for Comfort, and Never be Mine especially, and Kate knows to give him space to do his thing. So effective.

Is that Eberhard on Prologue too?

oh hell yes. i listened that this afternoon... fuckin' a.

I've pointed out some Joyce parallels somewhere upthread, gypsy, but the more I've listened the less important I think he is to this album. I don't think you can be a JJ fan without him always influencing you somehow, but he's not as central to Aerial as he is to Sensual World.

I also agree that probably the most astonishing thing on this album is Kate's voice and how murderously perfect her phrasing is. And again, it's in the softer and slower moments that this shines - definitely "who knows who wrote that song of summer", but also "it's my favourite piece/it's just great", "is that a wind from a desert soul?", "So you'll never grow old to us", "Somewhere in between breathing out and breathing in", "oh and the waves are coming in/oh and the waves are going out", "you bring me such joy and then you bring me/more joy"....

If we're gonna talk writers this feels more like Virginia Woolf than Joyce - first disc is "Mrs. Dalloway" and the second disc is the middle section of "To The Lighthouse".

that part in "invisible" with the sampled voices

"or is that you / walkin' home"

that part where she whistles at the end

there is NOTHING i would change about aerial -- the indulgent tweeness doesn't detract at all for me.

Paddy Bush - news on special Kate compiled CD (& Paddy's documentary).

http://homepage.eircom.net/~twoms/SonglinesCD.jpg

19th November 2005: Paddy Bush, Kate's brother, has let me know that the World Music magazine Songlines are including Kate next month as part of a series of regular features called "My World" (rather like a world music desert island discs). Paddy, who writes for the magazine and is featured in the current issue, persuaded Kate into selecting her top ten world music favourites, which will be featured on the cover mounted CD. We know that Kate's Songlines CD compiled by Kate choices include Justin Vali from Madagascar (who played on The Red Shoes album and has worked and toured with Paddy). Also chosen is music from Germany, Brittany and Ireland. Kate will have a comment on each of the tracks to go with the CD. The magazine is out on the 9th of December. Spread the word! Read more about ordering the Songlines magazine here. Also, the excellent Madagascar film that Paddy did for for Channel 4 in 1998, Like A God When He Plays, has been shown on a US satellite TV station called Link TV and will be repeated throughout this coming week, see the channel's website here for broadcast times. This is a beautiful film and I know from my emails that there are a lot of Paddy Bush fans who missed it first time out. Thanks Pad, congrats again on Kate's top 4 hit single (Paddy, reluctant popstar, did the spooky backing vocals!). Paddy has also sent in a feature for issue 77 of HomeGround, which will be out in April. Read more about Paddy and the documentary at my original feature here. UPDATE: From the editor of Songlines: "not all the tracks on the CD are Kate's playlist, the CD also includes our own editor's choice selection, Kate's selection includes Rolf Harris, Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder and Justin Vali"

=========
carry on
=========

(JBR otm almost continously on this thread. And I like what Tim Finney wrote and what Dr J Bowman says, and agree with a bunch of other things I've lost track of. I'm not sure what I think the value of unspecific "otm"ing is though.)

x-post:

Kate Bush in Songlines! This could be very fun for me.

gosh, i really want to do another one of those "around the world in 80 minutes" ilmixors. where's austin? (ahem, sorry, i'll revive the thread.)

doesn't mean that i wouldn't WRITE it differently, i just don't feel that anything here needs to be disturbed. wtf, it works.

OTM. There are so many wonderful stand-out moments on Sky of Honey that I don't get the objection. (How about the phrasing of "And night" JBR pointed out upthread?) How about the (my lyric sheet is at work) part about stars on "Nocturn" where the line seems to shimmer in a star-like way?

Yes, and I've always loved music that does this. It gets into my subconscious so that when I hear it again I momentarily forget exactly how the next stage of things is going to go until I actually hear it again.

For me the climax, though - if there really is one - is "Look At The Light! And all the time it's a changing! Look at the light!" I know this because even if I've sat completely stationary for the rest of the record, I suddenly jump up off the couch in excitement at that point and sing from the bottom of my soul and it's really only in that moment that it occurs to me that there HAS been a building up to it the whole time, a building up which was very subtle, perhaps indetectable in the moment, but in retrospect, always there.

Meanwhile, Marcello speaketh : http://cookham.blogspot.com/

This 'Sky' side is frequently gorgeous in its fothering rush ('Who knows who wrote that song of summer the blackbirds sing at dusk?' she sings with real wonder on 'Sunset'), while the rousing swell and thunderous vocal of 'Nocturne' is stunning. But ecstasy is a difficult mood to maintain convincingly. Cumulatively it can feel like an overlong elaboration of a mood Bush struck much more succinctly on 'The Sensual World', though without that song's randy langour.

... seems there's a whole lot more going on than ecstasy.

Possibly ecstasy is the wrong word. The second disc is very "hello birds, hello trees, nature is wonderful" and, for me, there isn't really enough drama or tension or contrast to make it compelling. It's safely pastoral, whereas I think her best songs are a bit more wildly pagan. And yes, I think there's more going on - affirmation, doubt, lust, longing - in the 4 minutes of 'The Sensual World' than in the whole of the second disc. Maybe I just have a short attention span!

I can kind of almost see what you're saying - Morning Fog came on realplayer last night and I immediately thought that what Aerial is lacking is maybe snap or something like that (maybe something to do with real drums as opposed to programmed).

But it is still unutterably dope, and saying it's not (quite) as good as HOL is only like saying it's an album which isn't HOLD...

WHAT IF IT TAKES ANOTHER 24 YEARS FOR HER NEXT ALBUM TO APPEAR!~

oh yeah, i'm not that either.

Doubt that I get it all the way, not knowing Kate Bush's work except in the patchiest manner, but I had a sip of the Aerial Kool-Aid today and it was sweet. Respect.

I haven't been listening to this, but not because I've stopped liking it. I just got some pretty big, bad, news this week, and my mood changed (or has been changing) pretty dramatically. (Also, I've been busy with domestic chores in a way that makes it hard to properly sit down and listen, or even sit down and be in the same room with.) Something else has been required. I've been listening to a lot of Sun Ra, who I find comforting (at least if I get to pick which of his recordings to listen to), someone I hadn't been listening to much. But hopefully tonight this Aerial will return.

It's one of the few double-cd albums I can think of that doesn't feel bloated

(nb. feeling bloated not being the same as having filler. The problem with the whole "there's only one disc of good songs here" argument as applied to double albums is that rarely do people actually have consensus over what those songs are. What this argument really means is that we rarely ever want more than one disc of good songs, so we end up applying that reasoning as a matter of course)

(note: I may change my mind again about this)

I just wanted to say I'm really glad Rockist Scientist mentioned Sun Ra as I honestly don't think I've even heard Sun Ra since I saw him live years ago. That's probably something I really need to reconnect with, but would never think of.

I really wish I knew of some more nice jazzy things like Sunset to try. I did go through a bit of a jazz phase about 10 years ago but it was mostly organ-based funky late 60's jazz, which is not the kind of thing I'm craving now. I really like it when David Sylvian or some of my other favourite artists suddenly decide to do the occaisional jazzy thing, like even Vini Reilly's (well, Durutti Column's) song "Jazz".

Maybe I should just shut up and read Marcello's review since I've been meaning to and this thread seems to be dying a slow death.

I hope Dr. C will weigh in more eventually.

The Marcello review is great so far, I'd really like to quote some of it on another board I frequent. But I wouldn't without permission because I'm not like that.

getting back at Jerry - affirmation, doubt, lust, longing - sorry but your statement is complete hyperbowl - Sky has all of those and more. a more just comparison is with The Ninth Wave or even The Dreaming .

however, thanks for making me go back and listen to Sensual World (which is unquestionably a great song), as it brought me into reacquaintance with Never Be Mine, possibly the best thing she ever did, or rather perhaps I should say has ever done, seeing as she's picked up the baton again.

the Sign o the times dvd arrived this weekend, and I've decided that for the next album I want another album: one CD of faux-jazz a la Sunset and one CD of hard 80s programmed beats a la Hounds of Love .

I am prepared to wait until 2020.

I found the part on Aerial that reminds me specifically of Peter Gabriel after all!!!!! I finally found it! It's in Prologue right before and during her singing "To find the song of the oil and the brush?" Is it just the drum and bass there, what the hell is it?

Oh, for the hard '80s programmed beats and schlock sensibilities of, say, "Heads, We're Dancing."