FEATURE:
A Sea of Honey for the Mind and Soul
The Emotional Impact of Kate Bush’s Aerial
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AS Kate Bush’s Aerial…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an alternate publicity shot for 2005’s Aerial/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
turns sixteen on 7th November, I wanted to do another feature to mark its anniversary. This was, as many are aware, the album that followed 1993’s The Red Shoes. As we prepare to mark ten years since her current studio album, 50 Words for Snow, it makes me wonder whether we will see a gap of twelve years – that was the length of time between The Red Shoes and Aerial. On 7th November, 2005, we got an album that sounded unlike anything like Bush had recorded before. In the sense there is a conceptual arc to Aerial – on the second disc, A Sky of Honey -, one can compare it with Hounds of Love. Aerial is less propulsive and ‘physical’ as that album. I associate Hounds of Love with being quite a masculine, percussive and experimental album where Kate Bush was at her peak. A lot lighter and less anxious than The Dreaming (1982), Hounds of Love was Bush at her most content and pioneering. I think that Aerial saw her return to that sense of happiness and contentment. Not that The Red Shoes sounds difficult or lacking. I think that, by 1993, one can tell that she needed some time out – having worked tirelessly and really had chance to breathe since before her debut album! One of the defining aspects of Aerial is its emotional impact on the listener. For Bush as the creator, like Hounds of Love, we get a half/disc of conventional (or standalone tracks) songs and then a second half/disc of a suite of songs.
I guess the single, King of the Mountain, is the closest song we have to Hounds of Love and previous albums. It is quite driving and has an epic quality. It is a stirring and atmospheric song that perfectly opens a long-awaited album. Through the first side, one is moved by what Bush is singing. Bertie is a paen to her new song (who was born in 1998). Mrs. Bartolozzi is about a heroine who turns domestic duties into this fantastical and erotic thing! It is one of Bush’s finest vocal turns on the album and (the song) is filled with so many wonderful images. This is the song that stands out to me. It reminds me of a track that we might have received on early albums like The Kick Inside (her 1978 debut) and 1980’s Never for Ever. How to Be Invisible, Joanni and A Coral Room are packed with incredible views and emotions. A Coral Room showcases why Bush is one of the most distinct songwriters ever: “There were hundreds of people living here/Sails at the windows/And the planes came crashing down/And many a pilot drowned/And the speed boats flying above/Put your hand over the side of the boat/What do you feel?”. I listen to the songs on A Sea of Honey and I am affected each time I do. Bush’s vocals are so astounding and memorable. Even though it was twelve years since she released an album, she had lost none of her richness and diversity. In fact, her voice ageing gives the music new strength and nuance!
It is A Sky of Honey that produces the biggest hit on the heart and soul. The nine songs tack us on a trip through the course of a day. From Prelude to Aerial, we experience the sights, sounds and smells of nature and a beautiful day. I envisage the songs being written by Bush during a warm summer whilst she was sitting in her garden. Even though Aerial was released in November, one can transport themselves to a warmer and brighter plain when they hear the songs. One closes their eyes and is transported as they listen to the songs as a suite. Even though there is an option to select tracks individually and skip then, Bush wants people to listen to them as a whole. A 2010 digital release, An Endless Sky of Honey, did not distinguish tracks. One had this single piece. Unfortunately, given the fact Rolf Harris appears on a couple of tracks, Bush recruited her son, Bertie, to replace his vocal parts. The 2018 release put A Sky of Honey back to its original form. It is a shame that there cannot be a new release of An Endless Sky of Honey. Also, I have mooted the possibility of mounting A Sky of Honey. I know Bush performed this suite for Before the Dawn in 2014. From what the reviews say, the staging was a visual treat that did justice to the rich imagination that runs through the songs. It would be interesting to see a short film with the songs scoring an animation of filmed piece.
Sixteen years after it arrived, Aerial has lost none of its power and beauty. I will finish off by showing a couple of positive reviews for Aerial. The album received huge acclaim when it was released. This is what The Guardian had to say:
“In the gap since 1993's so-so The Red Shoes, the Kate Bush myth that began fomenting when she first appeared on Top of the Pops, waving her arms and shrilly announcing that Cath-ee had come home-uh, grew to quite staggering proportions. She was variously reported to have gone bonkers, become a recluse and offered her record company some home-made biscuits instead of a new album. In reality, she seems to have been doing nothing more peculiar than bringing up a son, moving house and watching while people made up nutty stories about her.
Aerial contains a song called How to Be Invisible. It features a spell for a chorus, precisely what you would expect from the batty Kate Bush of popular myth. The spell, however, gently mocks her more obsessive fans while espousing a life of domestic contentment: "Hem of anorak, stem of wallflower, hair of doormat."
Domestic contentment runs through Aerial's 90-minute duration. Recent Bush albums have been filled with songs in which the extraordinary happened: people snogged Hitler, or were arrested for building machines that controlled the weather. Aerial, however, is packed with songs that make commonplace events sound extraordinary. It calls upon Renaissance musicians to serenade her son. Viols are bowed, arcane stringed instruments plucked, Bush sings beatifically of smiles and kisses and "luvv-er-ly Bertie". You can't help feeling that this song is going to cause a lot of door slamming and shouts of "oh-God-mum-you're-so-embarrassing" when Bertie reaches the less luvv-er-ly age of 15, but it's still delightful.
The second CD is devoted to a concept piece called A Sky of Honey in which virtually nothing happens, albeit very beautifully, with delicious string arrangements, hymnal piano chords, joyous choruses and bursts of flamenco guitar: the sun comes up, birds sing, Bush watches a pavement artist at work, it rains, Bush has a moonlight swim and watches the sun come up again. The pavement artist is played by Rolf Harris. This casting demonstrates Bush's admirable disregard for accepted notions of cool, but it's tough on anyone who grew up watching him daubing away on Rolf's Cartoon Club. "A little bit lighter there, maybe with some accents," he mutters. You keep expecting him to ask if you can guess what it is yet.
Domestic contentment even gets into the staple Bush topic of sex. Ever since her debut, The Kick Inside, with its lyrics about incest and "sticky love", Bush has given good filth: striking, often disturbing songs that, excitingly, suggest a wildly inventive approach to having it off. Here, on the lovely and moving piano ballad Mrs Bartolozzi, she turns watching a washing machine into a thing of quivering erotic wonder. "My blouse wrapping around your trousers," she sings. "Oh, and the waves are going out/ my skirt floating up around my waist." Laundry day in the Bush household must be an absolute hoot”.
I am going to finish with The Times’ assessment of an album that ranks alongside Kate Bush’s absolute best:
“Twelve years is a long time in the pop world. In the period since Kate Bush’s last album, the somewhat underwhelming The Red Shoes, entire Brit-pop empires have risen and fallen, and a dance music revolution has exploded, fragmented and fizzled away. Somehow, though, Bush stands outside such temporal concerns in the strange soundworld of her own making. And now, finally, she’s back.
Ariel is a double album and, like most doubles, it has its ponderous moments. Thankfully, it also contains half-a-dozen tracks that are as good as anything she has done, and its closing triptych, Somewhere In Between, Nocturn and Ariel, represents the most joyous and euphoric finale to an album that you will hear all year.
If the recent single and opening track, King of the Mountain, hinted at a newfound maturity in her voice, it also confirmed the increased sophistication of her lyrics. Who else inhabits the kind of skewed terrain where Elvis morphs into Citizen Kane? And who else would have written a homage to pi? 3.1415, she coos over a rich bed of acoustic guitars. 926535, she continues fetchingly.
During her long period of exile, a friend phoned to tell me that he had seen her in the street, gleefully reporting that she’s starting to look like your favourite hippie aunt. She’s starting to sound like it, too. The second half of Ariel abounds with twittering birdscapes, melting suns and artists who morph into their paintings, the whole shebang culminating with that extraordinary trio of songs in which Kate seems to merge with the birdsong. There really is no one quite like her.
There are moments on Ariel when you wish she would cut loose with the arrangements which at times remain far too linear and rooted in a soundscape that she hasn’t tampered with significantly since the 1980s and collaborate with a Massive Attack or a Future Sound of London.
But all is forgiven the moment you hear a song such as Mrs Bartolozzi, in which a life of domestic drudgery is suddenly transformed into something magically sensual just by watching a blouse and a pair of trousers intertwining in a washing machine. Shine on you crazy Hotpoint-wielding diamond”.
A happy sixteenth anniversary to Aerial for 7th November. The album sold more than 90,000 copies in its first week of release and has now been certified as Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. MOJO named Aerial their third-best album of 2005. The album received a BRIT Award nomination for Best British Album in 2006. Bush was also nominated for Best British Female in the same year. I remember listening to Aerial when it came out in 2005. It was such a relief to hear Bush had lost none of her genius. She sounds so inspired and refreshed throughout. It is a truly remarkable work that elicits so many emotional responses! A record that demands full attention, Aerial is an immense work that you should grab on vinyl. If you are a fan of Kate Bush (or not) and do not have it in your collection, then…
GO and buy a copy.