FEATURE:
Aerial Shots
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for Aerial in 2005
Kate Bush’s Symphonic and Sweeping A Sky of Honey
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I don’t think enough mind is paid…
to one of Kate Bush’s greatest musical accomplishments. This is not tied to an anniversary, but I have been thinking about Aerial. The 2005 album came twelve years after The Red Shoes. She had been suggesting a new album was coming out before that. Nobody would have known that we’d get a double album. In terms of the sounds and feel, it was very different to The Red Shoes. The first side of the album is more conventional in terms of its songs and concept. With one single released from the album, King of the Mountain, Aerial does start with one of its most immediate and accessible moments. Elsewhere on the first disc, you get Kate Bush in full Kate Bush mode. You get a paen to her then-young son Bertie (Bertie), and her reciting Pi/π (Pi). Comparisons have been made between Hounds of Love and Aerial. The 1985 album was a result of Bush recording an album following one that was quite draining and exhausting. It that case, it was 1982’s The Dreaming. She dedicated more time to family and space. She built a studio at her family home and changed her life. Similarly, Bush followed the difficult The Red Shoes – albeit after a longer gap – with Aerial. She started a family and very much came back to us having stepped away from the limelight. Both albums featured one side of more conventional songs, with a second side being conceptual and a suite. Many felt that Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave could not be equalled. That is about a women lost at sea who needs rescuing. You wonder whether she will make it and, by the final song, there are questions as to whether she actually made it. A Sky of Honey is different. That is the cycle of a single summer’s day. It starts one morning before moving through to the next one.
Maybe The Ninth Wave took place across a single day, but there are contrasts. The Ninth Wave, psychologically, seems to be about an artist who was drowning or struggling that is now free or rescued from that. A Sky of Honey is a content and happy artist who is revelling in her surroundings without there being any twist or darker edge. The nine tracks that go into A Sky of Honey are so compelling and rich. You get sounds of nature, layered vocals, scenes, and colours that just had to be brought to the stage. I was not able to see Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn in 2014. There, she brought to life The Ninth Wave and A Sky of Honey to life. That was the concept and thread of the residency. She wanted to perform both of those suites. The dramatic and stirring The Ninth Wave alongside the more serene and calming A Sky of Honey provided a challenge in terms of narrative and sets, but it was executed beautifully. I think that A Sky of Honey does not get the same credit and focus it deserves. In terms of the compositions and vocals, I think that this is Kate Bush at her peak. Her creativity and production is sublime. Some of her most powerful and beautiful vocals are on this suite. I especially love Nocturn and what she does there. When Aerial was released on 7th November, 2005, it reached number three in the U.K. I have written before whether we might get a third suite from Kate Bush.
If she does ever release a new album, a song cycle would be wonderful. I think Bush is at her most extraordinary, cinematic, and symphonic when she is composing a grand suite. I have always thought of Bush as a composer and scorer. She has this ambitious mindset that comes to life and is explored through a longer form piece. To me, it is the nature and birdsong that is most affecting. In fact, when MOJO named the best fifty Bush tracks earlier this year, they placed An Endless Sky of Honey at thirty-one. On the original 2005 release, the tracks were separated. In May 2010 when Aerial was released to iTunes for the first time, Bush put the second side as a continuous suite. Maybe suiting it better, it meant people had to listen the whole way through. When it comes to voices and sounds that inspired her most, the humble blackbird is top of the list:
“Hello birds, hello trees, hello genius.
When veteran British songwriter Don Black met Kate Bush for the first time in 1996, he asked if she had a favourite singer. “The blackbird,” she replied. “And my second favourite is the thrush.” Birdsong was clearly an inspiration for the second half of her double masterpiece, Aerial, initially presented as a suite of distinct songs. When the album appeared on iTunes in 2010 it had become one giant 42-minute track named after its closing, euphoric instrumental passage: An Endless Sky Of Honey. And that is what we’re gazing at here. 24 hours of light, sound, love, song and landscape distilled into one heady draught. The jewel on the sundial’s gnomon is Kate herself, every aspect of her is caught during the day: lover, mother, visionary, artist, naturalist, poet. As the final instrumental section hits high noon, we’re flooded in all that refracted sunlight”.
I just wanted to pay tribute to A Sky of Honey. Even of Bush would prefer it be listened to as a single piece, there are songs from the cycle that should be played on radio. Maybe Somewhere In Between has been played before, but there is so much wonder and brilliance that has not been heard on the air. One of her greatest music achievements, fans were in for a treat in 2005 when Aerial arrived. It would be nice to think that it will get new life in the future. Bush did bring it to the stage in 2014, but I have always liked the idea of a short film that uses some of the songs. In terms of the sheer scale and sound, we go from the tender and homely to something spectacular and wide-ranging. Bush takes us inside her garden…but she also gives us something much grander. Nature and the natural world has always been part of her music. The fact that Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave and Aerial’s A Sky of Honey features them heavily in different ways. The wild waters and wind of the former turned to the calmer breeze and summer of the latter. If you can afford it and have not listened to Aerial, the vinyl copy is a real must. You get to hear A Sky of Honey on that format. It is a listening experience this remarkable suite in its full glory! I have been struck and dazzled by A Sky of Honey since 2005. Every time I play the song cycle, it is impossible not to…
GET lost in it.