FEATURE:
Death by Sound
Kate Bush’s Experiment IV
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THERE are few songs in the Kate Bush cannon…
that I have neglected to cover but, for this feature, I want to explore Experiment IV. Many people might not be aware of the song as it did not appear on a studio album. I am always fascinated by artists who release a greatest hits album and put a new song on. There is an argument that there’s a danger of missing out on a classic in favour of something new, but many artists have the odd song left over that they want to include. That is not to say that the songs are throwaway; I think it is fine having a packed greatest hits album with one new song. Kate Bush’s The Whole Story turns thirty-five next year (on 10th November). Released a year after Hounds of Love, there was this feeling from EMI that Bush has gained a whole new audience – including a lot of attention from the U.S. – and it was the right time to put out a greatest hits. After five studio albums, one gets a nice spread of tracks. It is singles that we get in The Whole Story so, at twelve tracks, one does not get too many deeper cuts. There is subjectiveness as to what constitutes the best songs of artists, but there is a lot of variation and quality on the album. Experiment IV appears near the end between Sat in Your Lap, and The Dreaming (both from The Dreaming). I am not sure whether
Bush intended Experiment IV to appear on Hounds of Love but, as it is similar in places to Mother Stands for Comfort, perhaps it was kept aside for that reason. The single was released on 27th October, 1986 and it was a great launch of The Whole Story. With this new song in the world, fans had this treat and could look forward to an album that, unsurprisingly, sold really well – The Whole Story reached number-one on the U.K. album charts and has sold well over one-million copies to date. Experiment IV was also included on The Other Sides last year. The track concerns a secret military plan to create a sound that is horrifying enough to kill people. It is a typically unique perspective and story from Kate Bush, and I really love the star-packed video – which I shall get to soon. Experiment IV peaked at twenty-three in the singles chart in the U.K., simultaneously with Don't Give Up (Bush's duet with Peter Gabriel, which reached number-nine). I recently talked about Bush’s amazing duet with Peter Gabriel, and I love the fact that Bush was involved with two successful songs not included on any of her studio albums. After the huge success of Hounds of Love in 1985, I am not surprised that The Whole Story performed so well. It would be a further three years before Bush released The Sensual World, but I really love her greatest hits album and the fact there was this exciting new song.
Last year, Kate Bush herself gave her recollections of Experiment IV:
“This was written as an extra track for the compilation album The Whole Story and was released as the single. I was excited at the opportunity of directing the video and not having to appear in it other than in a minor role, especially as this song told a story that could be challenging to tell visually. I chose to film it in a very handsome old military hospital that was derelict at the time. It was a huge, labyrinthine hospital with incredibly long corridors, which was one reason for choosing it. Florence Nightingale had been involved in the design of the hospital. Not something she is well known for but she actually had a huge impact on hospital design that was pioneering and changed the way hospitals were designed from then on.
The video was an intense project and not a comfortable shoot, as you can imagine - a giant of a building, damp and full of shadows with no lighting or heating but it was like a dream to work with such a talented crew and cast with Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Peter Vaughn and Richard Vernon in the starring roles. It was a strange and eerie feeling bringing parts of the hospital to life again. Not long after our work there it was converted into luxury apartments. I can imagine that some of those glamorous rooms have uninvited soldiers and nurses dropping by for a cup of tea and a Hobnob.
We had to create a recording studio for the video, so tape machines and outboard gear were recruited from my recording studio and the mixing console was very kindly lent to us by Abbey Road Studios. It was the desk the Beatles had used - me too, when we’d made the album Never For Ever in Studio Two. It was such a characterful desk that would’ve looked right at home in any vintage aircraft. Although it was a tough shoot it was a lot of fun and everyone worked so hard for such long hours. I was really pleased with the result. (KateBush.com, February 2019)”.
On the B-side of Experiment IV (the U.K. single) is Wuthering Heights with a new vocal. Although I much prefer the original Wuthering Heights, I think that it is cool that we got these two new recordings. Although there are one or two quite intense songs on The Sensual World, and The Red Shoes, I think Experiment IV is one of her last songs that has the same sort of experimental and eerier quality of tracks on The Dreaming, and Hounds of Love.
Maybe Experiment IV was the last throw of that dice, or it was a bridge between where Bush was and where she was heading. I want to finish off by sourcing from an article on the Behind the Couch website (from 2013), where we get some more detail about its video:
“Throughout the song the listener is fed snippets of exactly what has gone into creating this devastating sound – From the painful cries of mothers, To the terrifying scream... We recorded it and put it into our machine. The dark subject matter of both the lyrics and the video - sinister music that can harm and kill the listener, coupled with the strange technology the scientists use to create it (most hauntingly of all it’s never revealed why) - calls to mind the work of British sci-fi/horror writer Nigel Kneale, who frequently blended science and supernaturalism with anti-authoritarian undertones. In works such as Halloween III and The Woman in Black – and indeed John Carpenter’s homage to the work of Neale, Prince of Darkness – technology is presented as a quasi-magical force with severely sinister connotations.
Dawn French and Hugh Laurie provide a little comic relief as two scientists ensconced in the dubious research, and the reluctant Professor overseeing the research is named Jerry Coe; perhaps a reference to Jericho, the walls of which crumbled at the sound of the Israelites’ trumpets at the end of a war, as described in the biblical book of Joshua.
The horrific effects of the scientists’ research is featured throughout the video, as various test-subjects are shown writhing around in straitjackets after hearing the sound. Finally, when the sound is 'unveiled', it appears as a spectral siren which suddenly takes on the form of a terrifying winged ghoul, which then proceeds to wreck havoc in the lab, slaughtering the scientists and test-subjects alike. The camera then assumes the role of the creature and pursues various scientists along the starkly lit and increasingly chaotic corridors of the facility, eventually tracking outside to reveal the rather apocalyptic aftermath of the incident – pre-empting ‘contagion horrors’ such as 28 Days Later etc. A cordoned-off vicinity around a music shop (revealed to be a front for the shady government project) – in which the shopkeeper is displaying copies of Experiment IV – is strewn with the bodies of the dead. Lastly, we see Ms Bush hitch-hiking on a nearby stretch of road and clambering into a van, but before she does, she turns to wink at us knowingly, suggesting this is only the beginning of her deadly mission… It could sing you to sleep, But that dream is your enemy! Incidentally, the sound of the helicopter heard at the end of the song as the military make a hasty retreat, is the very same helicopter sound heard in Pink Floyd's The Happiest Days of Our Lives from The Wall. Dave Gilmour and Kate are good friends”.
I will write some more features about The Whole Story as it gets nearer to its thirty-fifth anniversary, but I was keen to dig deep into a song that many people might not be aware of. I think Experiment IV is one of Kate Bush most-underrated songs…its video is startling, scary and amazing. It shows that there are truly…
NO limits to Kate Bush’s talent.