FEATURE:
Underneath the Sleeve, Beneath the Grooves
IN THIS PHOTO: A still from the video shoot of Running Up That Hill in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, Kate: Inside the Rainbow)
Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Thirty-Five: The Sonic Brilliance, Incredible Production and Perfect Track Listing of a Classic Album
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I already marked Hounds of Love’s…
thirty-fifth anniversary on Monday but, as the album is thirty-five today (16th September), I wanted to put another feature out. Through various pieces, I have tackled various songs on the album, its legacy and reputation, and why it is such a masterpiece. I have not really discussed the sonic beauty, the excellent production and the bang-on tracklist that is a big factor when we ask why Hounds of Love remains so gilded and adored. Kate Bush produced solo for the first time for 1982’s The Dreaming, and as much as I love that album, I think she was taking a lot on and not thinking about her wellbeing. Bush was exploring so many different new sounds and world. The production on that album is accomplished, but I think, befitting of the album’s sound, it can be quite tense and claustrophobic. Hounds of Love is a very open, majestic and beautiful-sounding record that has some polish to it but it never sounds overly-produced or lacking in soul! Hounds of Love is a very different-sounding album compared to its predecessor and Bush showed, after there were some concerns from EMI whether she should produce solo again, that she could create this very rich, nuanced and cinematic album that displayed plenty of heart, intricacy and colour, and yet it remains so accessible. A lot of other albums that deal with concepts and suites – as the second side, The Ninth Wave, is a song-suite -, can be quite inaccessible and difficult to get your head around, and despite the songs on The Ninth Wave being different and detailed, Bush managed to bring them to life and unify them without losing the listener.
Also, she recorded between Wickham Farm Home Studio (Welling), Windmill Lane Studios, and Abbey Road Studios (for orchestral sections), but the fact she built a twenty-four-track studio behind her family home allowed her greater space, time and comfort to be able to record and produce the album and make it sound so varied, fulsome and endlessly intriguing. Although she recorded the songs between January 1984 and June 1985, I don’t think she was taking too much time to record. Conversely, previous albums seemed a bit rushed, and Hounds of Love was a moment when Bush could make an album without too much pressure and expectation – as she was at home and in a different environment, that aided her production and work. Bush looked at The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993) as not sounding as good as she would have liked. The Red Shoes has a very ‘90s sound in terms of production, and it is quite plastic in places; The Sensual World is brilliant, but some of the songs benefitted from a re-record on 2011’s Director’s Cut. Hounds of Love is the album that marries the experimental and conventional; Bush made the album sound urgent-yet-romantic, widescreen-yet-intimate. A feature from Inlander caught my eye, where the brilliant production of Hounds of Love was highlighted.
“I don't know if it's possible to be seduced by a song, but it's how I felt the first time I heard Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill." It seems to emerge from a shroud of fog and mystery with thudding electronic percussion and elastic synths, which gradually intensify into a thunderstorm of overlapping incantations, wailing electric guitars and guttural pleas to a higher power. By the end, it actually feels like you've run up that hill right alongside her.
Bush became her own producer in 1982 with her fourth LP The Dreaming, much of which she programmed on a Fairlight synthesizer machine, a relatively new invention at the time. The record still sounds unusual today: Bush's voice slithers through synthetic soundscapes on songs filled with beguiling polyrhythms and vocal samples, and with subject matter ranging from the Vietnam War to Harry Houdini to The Shining.
What's most remarkable about Hounds of Love is Bush's gripping production work: Even though she hired a host of session musicians to take on her complex arrangements, it nonetheless feels like an auteurist record, driven by a single vision. It's a sonic epic, but it still manages to conjure images of Bush spending hours alone in her private home studio, tinkering with computers and discovering new sounds. You can hear so many of those innovations seeping into the late '80s output of Prince and the Eurythmics, and artists like St. Vincent, Grimes, Solange, Adele and Big Boi of OutKast have cited Bush as a primary influence.
She's still pushing artistic boundaries, releasing decidedly noncommercial, high-concept albums and refusing to fall into the standard touring schedule of most entertainers (her 22-night London residency in 2014 was her first time headlining concerts since 1979). She's been fiercely independent her entire career, and has never not done everything exactly her way.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Hounds of Love cover shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, Kate: Inside the Rainbow)
There's a fleeting moment on Hounds of Love that sums all that up: About halfway through "The Big Sky," right before it bursts into a mantra-like coda, Bush casually drops a request: "Tell 'em, sisters." And the response is a chorus of her own voice, layered infinite times atop itself. That's because Kate Bush is the entire cast of characters in her strange rock opera — the artist and the ingenue, the eccentric and the pragmatist, the protege and the mentor. She's one of the preeminent pop geniuses of our time, and it's time she got her due”.
More than most albums I have ever heard, Hounds of Love is pretty much made for vinyl! Go and buy a copy, as one can lose themselves in an album whose sonics and production draws the listener into the material and brings all the sound vividly to life. Not only is the album immaculately produced and possessed of such a wonderful sound, but I think the songs are ordered so that they provide the greatest and most rewarding listening experience! Of course, Kate Bush would have had an idea of which tracks went where on The Ninth Wave, but I admire how each of the seven tracks slot perfectly together. Most of the tracks are under five minutes - And Dream of Sheep (2:45), Under Ice (2:21), Waking the Witch (4:18), Watching You Without Me (4:06), Jig of Life (4:04), Hello Earth (6:13), The Morning Fog (2:34) –, and I like how The Ninth Wave started with shorter songs, before we get the longer ones…and then there is that final two combination of the longer Hello Earth, with the short-yet-satisfying The Morning Fog.
A lot of concept albums or suites would have songs of the same length, or the tracks might seem quite unsatisfying when put together in terms of their story, impact and production. Bush manages to tell this wonderful story of a woman lost at sea and, through the night, the sort of things that come into her head. From the uncertainty beneath her to a view from above the Earth, Bush literally takes us from the depths of the ocean to the dizzying heights of space! One listens to The Ninth Wave and you are left wanting more, despite the fact that the suite lasts over twenty-six minutes. The variety of textures, tones and instruments Bush brings into the song shows how ambitious she was as a songwriter and producer, but no song sounds cluttered or too busy! If the second side of the album was easier to sequence, then the same could not be said of the first half. Consisting of five tracks that, again, vary in running time but seem to fly by - Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) (5:03), Hounds of Love (3:02), The Big Sky (4:41), Mother Stands for Comfort (3:07), Cloudbusting (5:10). In retrospect, no other track could open Hounds of Love but Running Up That Hill/Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). It opens with such a warm vibe and heartbeat-percussion that is grand and tender at the same time.
Many producers would have put the title track at the top, but the longer Running Up That Hill makes for a longer and more fitting opening track. Although it is, perhaps, the strongest track on the entire album, Bush had plenty of diamonds in the first half, and she arranged them perfectly! The title track offers a more immediate start – with the cry of “It's in the trees!/It's coming!” (sampled from the British 1957 horror film, Night of the Demon) and faster percussion -, even though it is the shorter song. Both tracks are stunning, and I think Hounds of Love would not have started as promisingly if the two songs were elsewhere in the pack! The first side ends with another five-minute-plus track, but we have The Big Sky, and Mother Stands for Comfort next. The former is a longer track than Hounds of Love, and in terms of tone, it is wide-eyed and almost child-like in its exuberance. If Running Up That Hill is lusher and more propulsive, and Hounds of Love is more dramatic, then The Big Sky is more child-like and playful. I don’t think Mother Stands for Comfort could have ended the first half, as it is a darker song, and it would have clashed with And Dream of Sheep in terms of emotional impact – even though one would have to flip the vinyl over between those songs. Those two cuts are quite emotional and anxious in their own ways, and there might have been a risk putting two such opposing songs side by side. The Big Sky finishes with screams and wildness; a real carnival of sounds, whereas Mother Stands for Comfort is icier and is a lot nervier.
At just over three minutes, Mother Stands for Comfort could have been too draining or affecting if it was longer. Mirroring the sort of feelings and that beautiful opening of Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting has a rousing introduction and, to me, shares a lot in common with Running Up That Hill. The songs are pretty much the same length, and although the songs have different subject matters, I think the two tracks are perfect bookmarks! It may sound like an easy thing making an album sound a certain way and having a great track listing, but they are considerations that artists spend so much time over! Even a slight amendment to the tracklisting on the first half could have affected every other track, and if Bush had made certain songs on The Ninth Wave too long or short, that could have influenced how listeners perceive the whole album!. Of course, the musicians through the album and various engineers – including Haydn Bendall, Paul Hardiman, Nigel Walker and her main man, Del Palmer – also helped in making Hounds of Love sound so astonishing - but one has to give props to Bush as an intuitive and exceptional producer and artist! Today, so many people will be remembering Hounds of Love and talking about their favourite songs. I wanted to look at some of the nuts and bolts, and comment more on the overall sound and order, rather than another feature that pinpointed certain tracks or discussed the album’s legacy. Of course, Hounds of Love inspired countless artists and it is considered one of the greatest albums ever. It will earn a lot of love and affection today and…
FOR many generations to come!