FEATURE:
New Flowers on the Mountain
Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut at Thirteen
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ONE of Kate Bush’s least appreciated albums…
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
I do think that Director’s Cut has highlights and is important. If you think about the fact that she has been looking at her older work and re-issuing her albums, it reframes and recontextualises Director’s Cut. I am looking ahead to its thirteenth anniversary. It came out 16th May, 2011. It was the first time that Bush reworked her tracks. She has reissued her studio albums, yet this remains the only time she has taken tracks from studio albums and re-recorded them. In this case, it was 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. Maybe not a surprise that she would want to reapproach The Red Shoes. With a more compacted and too-1990s production sound, it is a bit compressed and tinny in places. The tracklisting seems odd too. The album would be stronger if it was stripped back and there was a track shift. Even so, there are a few weaker moments. Bush actually re-recorded Top of the City for Director’s Cut. I would have loved to have heard her take Why Should I Love You? and strip it back to how it was when Bush demoed the song. The version on The Red Shoes has too much going on. It was Prince who added so many parts and layers to the song. Even so, Bush did take lesser The Red Shoes cuts like The Song of Solomon and the title track and reworked them. I still think that the track order on Director’s Cut is out. If we approach it as a new album that flows and has its own narrative, I would not have Rubberband Girl last. Maybe she felt that was her weakest reworking. Moments of Pleasure or This Woman’s Work should have ended the album. It is me quibbling! Director’s Cut is an album of two halves.
I do like the fact that The Red Shoes gets focus. She could have instead taken songs from Never for Ever or Lionheart and reworked those. That is still something I would love to hear! The new sound and direction we hear applied to The Red Shoes’ tracks is largely successful. As I say, it would have been great for a couple of omissions to have been included. The most-streamed song from The Red Shoes that appears on Director’s Cut is Lily. I think that it is one of the best tracks on the album. I always thought that the original song should have been a single from The Red Shoes. Instead, And So Is Love was released. That gets included on Director’s Cut, though I feel it is one of the less memorable reworkings. I am going to come to interviews and reviews for Director’s Cut. It is unsurprising it split some people. It is a new album but one with familiar songs. It allowed Kate Bush to clear a creative path and release her most recent studio album, 50 Words for Snow. That came out late in 2011. It is more surprising that The Sensual World gets songs included. The fact Kate Bush found some of the sound and production flawed. I think that album is wonderful. Regardless, one can approve of her knowing her own music well enough to appreciate her decision. Whilst I feel Deeper Understanding is a misfire on Director’s Cut – as the 1989 oriignal was about the power and pull of computers and seemed strangely forward-thinking; the 2011 version makes no sense in that regard – and the video (directed by Kate Bush) is not her best, I like how she has included This Woman’s Work. When the song was originally released, as part of the soundtrack to the 1988 film She’s Having a Baby, Kate Bush was twenty-nine. When Director’s Cut came out, Bush was fifty-two. We get a new perspective and depth from the song. It is fascinating. I feel it should have been the swansong to Director’s Cut.
Opening her first album of 2011 is Flower of the Mountain. It is Bush reworking The Sensual World’s title track. Originally, Bush had wanted to use Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses. She was not granted permission. By the time she came to record Director’s Cut, that had changed. I think it was also out of copyright and in the public domain. Regardless, with that text now free to use, she renamed the song to reflect that. It is a highlight of Director’s Cut and the only track that could open the album, as I feel it was the main reason Bush recorded this album in the first place. At eleven tracks, the album runs to just under an hour. Fans can argue as to whether another song or two could have been added. Maybe a Director’s Cut 2? Let’s hear more about the album and what Kate Bush said about it. The songs on Director’s Cut is Kate Bush taking the original, remixing and restructuring them. Thee tracks were re-recorded completely. All the lead vocals on the album and some of the backing vocals were entirely re-recorded. Additionally, the drum tracks were reconceived and re-recorded. Kate Bush thought of it as a new album. It was an exciting time for fans. Her previous album, 2005’s Aerial, was her first after twelve years. It was nice having an album from her. Nobody could predict we would get another one in 2011!
Reaching number two in the U.K., Director’s Cut was met with positive reviews. Even if many fans album rankings would have it in the bottom three – alongside The Red Shoes and Lionheart -, I hope that it reappraised. Given how Bush is more willing to revisit her past music now, we can see how that truly began with Director’s Cut. The fact that she did that album to make way for new work could apply today. Bush has reissued her albums recently. Could this be the thing she needed to do before working on something new?! Who knows! I am going to come to an extensive interview Kate Bush gave to Pitchfork in 2011 in promotion of Director’s Cut. It is really fascinating and deep. First, CLASH reported on this wonderful and unexpected album. Why Kate Bush felt compelled to rework and imagine songs from two of her studio albums – both of which have very different sounds and dynamics:
“Kate Bush has spoken about her recent album ‘Director’s Cut’ and her changing voice.
An inspiration songwriter, Kate Bush recently decided to take a step back. Focussing on a neglected part of her career, the English artist opted to re-record tracks from ‘The Sensual World’ and ‘The Red Shoes’.
Collected on new album ‘Director’s Cut’ the results are fascinating. An insight into how a vital artist views her own career, Kate Bush released the album to widespread acclaim earlier this year.
Speaking to Interview Magazine recently, Kate Bush explained that she was motivated by a desire to “let the songs breathe more”.
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
“I really didn’t see it as a substitute for a greatest hits package, but it was something I’d wanted to do for a few years. I guess I just kind of felt like there were songs on those two albums that were quite interesting but that they could really benefit from having new life breathed into them.”
Continuing, she explained that the production on the initial albums remained a bone of contention. “I don’t really listen to my old stuff, but on occasion, I would either hear a track on the radio or a friend might play me one, and there was generally a bit of an edgy sound to it, which was mainly due to the digital equipment that we were using, which was state of the art at the time—and I think everyone felt pressured to be working that way.”
With some of the tracks dating back more than two decades, Kate Bush was forced to approach the material in a different way. On some recordings, the singer was unable to match the key of her youthful voice.
“I found that by just slightly lowering the key of most of the songs, suddenly it kind of gave me a way in, because my voice is just lower now. So that helped me to step back into it. And although they were old songs, it all started to feel very much like a new process and, in a lot of ways, ended up feeling like I was just making a new album—it’s just that the material was already written. When I listen to it now, it feels like a new record to me”.
I want to move on to an interview with Pitchfork. I have edited it down for a bit more clarity and concision, though I would urge everyone to read the full thing. It lays out the reasons why Kate Bush felt Director’s Cut needed to happen. It adds weight and merit to an album that remains undervalued and not as adored as her other studio albums:
“After more than 30 years of singular, forward-thinking music, Kate Bush is looking back. Sort of. The British iconoclast's new album, Director's Cut, re-imagines songs from her own The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993) with new vocals and drums mixing in with the original recordings. A few songs-- including a glacial, near-ambient take on her classic "This Woman's Work"-- have been re-recorded entirely. Leave it to Kate Bush to subvert the typical aging-pop-star reissue cycle. (Director's Cut is out today, May 16, in the UK and May 23 in the U.S. on Bush's own Fish People imprint; it's currently streaming in full at NPR.)
Though she crashed onto the UK charts with 1978's "Wuthering Heights"-- becoming the first woman to nab a British no. 1 hit with her own song-- and was an early music video innovator, Bush has retreated from the spotlight since. She's released only two albums of new material since 1990, but the 52-year-old singer/songwriter/producer/director is currently working on another record, though she's keeping details to herself at the moment. And while Bush famously hasn't toured since 1979, she's currently taking a "never say never" stance on future live performances. But even if Kate Bush never released another new song or graced another stage, her legacy and influence is remarkably strong, with current descendants like Florence and the Machine and Bat for Lashes owing much to her unique brand of pop mysticism.
We recently spoke with Bush-- who sounded as warm and wise as you'd hope-- about her intriguing new release, the ambiguities of modern technology, and the creepiness of clowns.
Pitchfork: You don't seem like an artist who takes much time to look back on your previous work. Did revisiting your own songs on Director's Cut bring up an internal conflict?
Kate Bush: There's always an internal conflict. [laughs] I don't really listen to my old stuff at all; the last time I heard the whole of The Sensual World was probably just after I made it. We just remastered The Red Shoes 10 days ago, which was the first time I heard it completely since it was made. I hear odd tracks from my albums every now and again on the radio, or maybe a friend plays me something. I don't think a lot of people listen to their old stuff, do they? I spent a long time making it, so I don't really want to spend much time listening to it again.
Pitchfork: If you hadn't really listened to The Sensual World and The Red Shoes at all, how did you even know that you wanted to remake the songs?
KB: For a few years, I've wanted to pick tracks off both albums and make them sound the way I would want them to if I made them now. At the time, I was really pleased with them; I wouldn't have put them out if they weren't the best I could do. I thought the odd tracks that I did hear from The Red Shoes had a bit of an edgy sound, which may be due to the digital equipment that everyone was using then and that a lot of people still use now. But I've always been a big fan of analog, and I wanted to try and warm up the sound of the tracks from that album. Then again, it was interesting actually hearing the whole of Red Shoes-- it actually wasn't as bad as I thought.
I mean, I could find faults with all my albums because that's just a part of being an artist-- it's hard being a human being, isn't it? [laughs] With both albums, there were a lot of ambitious ideas as well, so I was working on top of work that had already been done. I didn't have to start from scratch, so it was really something I did for myself as a kind of exercise. Although the songs are old, it's like a new record to me.
Pitchfork: The Red Shoes came out in 1993, the heyday of the compact disc. Were you recording specifically for that format?
KB: Yeah, that's absolutely right. It probably was my first album that was specifically a CD as opposed to vinyl. Red Shoes was a bit long-- which was also a part of this whole problem with the change from vinyl to CD. I think that put a lot of strain on artists, actually. With CDs, you suddenly didn't want to let people down so you tried to give them as much as possible for their money. [laughs] I didn't really feel that there were any filler tracks on The Red Shoes, but if I were to do that album now, I wouldn't make it so long.
The great thing about vinyl is that if you wanted to get a decent-sounding cut, you could really only have 20 minutes max on each side. So you had a strict boundary, and that was something I'd grown up with as well. Also, you were able to have different moods on each side, which was nice.
Pitchfork: You got permission to use part of James Joyce's Ulysses for the new version of "The Sensual World". What's your relationship with that book?
KB: I've only read it once-- it was a really long time ago, and it took me a really long time to read it. [laughs] The original idea for the song was to use part of the soliloquy at the end of the book, but I couldn't get permission. It was always a bit of a compromise to me when I had to go and write my own lyrics, which were OK but nowhere near as interesting as the original idea. So when I was putting the ideas together for this project, I though it was worth a shot to ask again-- they could only say no again. And, to my great surprise and delight, I was given permission. To actually be able to fulfill that original idea was fantastic.
Pitchfork: Did you take that green light as a sign that you were on the right track with this entire project?
KB: [laughs] No. When I started this project, I thought it was going to be really easy, simple, and quick. Then, quite early on, I just thought: "It's not going to work." I couldn't find my way in. For instance, the original vocals had an awful lot of work put into them at the time, and I wasn't really sure that I could better them-- I don't know if I have bettered them. But what I found was by lowering the key of most of the tracks, I could suddenly approach them in a different way. That was one of the first turning points.
Also, working with Steve Gadd, who did all the drums on the tracks that have a rhythm section, was a great experience because I've been a fan of his work for a long time, and his interpretation of music is quite extraordinary. He has a great subtlety in his approach, and he's someone who isn't afraid to leave stuff out.
Pitchfork: Listening to Director's Cut, a few of the songs that struck me the most were the ones where you took out big chunks of instrumentation. What was the logic behind that?
KB: There were some good songs on those albums that perhaps weren't speaking the way that they could, so I just wanted to let them breathe a bit more. One of the main things was to strip out a lot of the tracks and, in some cases, lengthen them in order to let the original musicians' performances shine out a bit more, too.
Pitchfork: A lot of the songs you picked for Director's Cut are pretty personal, and there seems to be less theatricality involved compared to the originals. Do you feel like the distance between your more performative side and your more personal side has changed through the years?
KB: [laughs] Oh, that's a really deep question. I don't know how to answer that because I'm always in the process, but hopefully I'm starting to get the hang of how to put it all together more. Sometimes when I look back on myself on those earlier records, there was so much effort going in, so much trying. With this, I was trying to make it much more laid back.
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Pitchfork: Right now, there are a lot of young artists taking cues from what you've done in the past. Are you aware of things like that?
KB: I don't keep track of a lot of it, but this is what people have been telling me. I'm very flattered. I spend a lot of time working and with my family, so I don't have much time around the edges to do much else. I don't really listen to a great deal of music. I love music, but since I spend a lot of time in the studio, we probably watch a movie rather than listen to albums. I get to hear stuff, but not on the grand scale.
Pitchfork: So you're still in the studio on a day-to-day basis?
KB: Yeah, I have been for a while now, because [Director's Cut] has been ready for quite some time. Although there were a lot of ongoing loose ends with this album, like the mastering and artwork, I went straight into making a new record when I finished it. I'm really enjoying working on new material. Director's Cut is kind of a one-off rather than a continuous revisiting of old stuff.
Pitchfork: I read an old interview about how you had 200 songs going into the studio to record your first album, but at this point, it seems safe to say you're more interested in taking the time to get a handful of songs right.
KB: It's just a completely different process now. When I was first writing, I used to sit at the piano and play songs-- I'd write one or two a night. It was my hobby. At some point, it then became a process that was mainly done within the context of the studio, and writing became part of the recording process. I still sometimes just write songs at the piano, and then of course it's taken into the studio and it becomes very different.
Pitchfork: Director's Cut is being released on your new imprint, Fish People. Why did you decide to start your own label now?
KB: Previously, I wasn't in a position to do so, but now I'm delighted with my own label because it means that I have more creative freedom, which is really what I want. Although I've always had a lot of creative freedom since my third album. But now, I don't have to refer to people at the record company for certain decisions that I might have before. In many ways, it's probably quite a subtle change. But with something like [the new "Deeper Understanding"] video, I really wanted to direct it without being in it and make it like a short film as opposed to a music video. That might have been something the record company would have questioned before.
Pitchfork: You mentioned preferring analog to digital recording, but "Deeper Understanding" has a very modern-sounding vocal effect on the chorus. As a producer, do you keep track of what's going on now as far as tools and advancements?
KB: I try to. My studio is a fantastic combination of old and new, and that's how I've always liked to work. But now, the new is newer, and old remains old. I like to work with a combination of analog and Pro Tools. I love the sound of analog tape, but there's so many things you can do with Pro Tools that would be incredibly difficult and very time-consuming with analog.
When I originally did "Deeper Understanding", I wanted the computer program to have a single voice so that it was a single entity, but at the time, there was only a pretty basic vocoder so I had to use backing vocals to make the words audible. This time, I could use a truly computerized voice that would stand alone. This album would've been possible to do entirely analog, but it would've been really difficult.
Pitchfork: We were talking about Ulysses before, and it's wild to think how James Joyce wrote such an incredibly dense work without all this technology we take for granted now. It seems even more super-human.
KB: Maybe we don't realize how crafted a lot of these people were; maybe there was this element of realization. There are some extraordinary human beings who have worked in the arts who did it all by themselves. Mozart didn't have Pro Tools, but he did a pretty good job”.
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Let’s finish with a couple of positive reviews for Director’s Cut. It is an acclaimed album. On Metacritic, it has a score of 80. It got a five-star review from The Independent. NME gave it 8/10. SPIN awarded it 9/10. Most critics were firmly behind this album and Bush’s need to recast and imagine some tracks from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. I will end with a review from Kate Bush News. Before that, I am sourcing The Guardian’s take. They say, even if the idea of Kate Bush re-recording and reworking her own songs sounds unappealing, she makes it work. Knowing that it was the first of two albums from her in 2011 gives it more purpose and meaning. She needed to approach the past and right some wrongs before she could move on:
“In 2011, with the whole nonpareil musical genius/dippy woman who says "wow" issue firmly sorted out in most people's minds, her behaviour seems to grow more inscrutable still. Her new album, which admittedly took only half as long to make as its predecessor, isn't actually a new album, despite Bush's insistence to the contrary: it consists entirely of new versions of songs from 1989's The Sensual World and 1993's The Red Shoes. In fairness, you can see why she's chosen to point them up. They tend to be overlooked in her oeuvre, more because they separate her twin masterpieces Hounds of Love and Aerial than because of their content, although The Red Shoes is perhaps more muddled than you might expect, given her legendary perfectionism. Nevertheless, the decision seems to have bamboozled even her diehard fans, whose trepidation was not much mollified by the single Deeper Understanding. Again, you can see why she wants to point it up: its lyric about abandoning social interaction in order to hunch over a computer seems very prescient in the age of Facebook and Twitter. But the new version's decision to overwhelm the haunting vocals of Trio Bulgarka with Kate Bush doing one of her patented Funny Voices through an Auto-Tune unit seems questionable at best.
In fact, it's the only moment when you can honestly say the rerecording pales next to the original. At worst, they sound as good as their predecessors, which leaves you wondering what the point is, even as you succumb to their manifold charms. It was obviously a bind that the Joyce estate refused permission to use Molly Bloom's concluding soliloquy from Ulysses as the lyrics to The Sensual World, but whether it's a vastly better song for finally having them in place of Bush's facsimile is rather a moot point. Song of Solomon, on which Bush finally abandoned her apparently bottomless store of metaphors for female sexuality in favour of a direct demand for a shag – "Don't want your bullshit," she cries, "I'll come in a hurricane for you" – is a fantastic song whether the rhythm track features pattering tom-toms or a lightly brushed snare. Occasionally, the changes genuinely add something, usually by taking things away. The force of The Red Shoes' depiction of Bush's troubled relationship with the creative impulse was always a little blunted by its presentation as a kind of perky Irish jig: with the Celtic pipes shifted to the background, it sounds sinister and more urgent. Moments of Pleasure's rumination on death is more introverted and affecting stripped of its dramatic orchestration, while This Woman's Work – the rerecording of which caused the most unease among fans – is amazing: emptier, darker and quieter than before, it's even more heart-rending. Given that the original was heart-rending enough to soundtrack a charity campaign against child abuse, that's no mean feat.
Is it worth spending six years making an emotionally wrenching song slightly more emotionally wrenching? Hmm. If Director's Cut really was a new album, if you were hearing these songs for the first time, then it probably would be considered among Kate Bush's masterpieces: certainly, the sheer quality of the songwriting makes every recent female artist who has been compared to her look pretty wan by comparison. But you're not, which means the Director's Cut ultimately amounts to faffing about, albeit faffing about of the most exquisite kind. Still, as anyone who's watched her putting up with Richard Stilgoe will tell you, Kate Bush has earned the right to do whatever she wants”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Fish People
I will finish up with this review from Seán Twomey. He runs Kate Bush News and also hosts episodes of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast. It was a surprise to everyone when Kate Bush announced a new album for 2011. Nobody would have guessed the nature of the album. What we get from Director’s Cut is an artist who definitely appreciated The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, though she was in a position where she could improve upon originals. Production and sounds that she may not be happy with now. In that sense, Director’s Cut was a whole new album:
“I suppose the nature of this project has thrown a few fans from what I’ve been reading online. There’s been a lot of talk about original versions, and what Kate was “doing” to them. “What if she changed this? How could she ever top that? What’s the point of revisiting such a perfect song?” Kate will have her own reasons for doing this record at this time, and no doubt the coming interviews will shed fascinating light on her motives. All I know is that on my very first listen I experienced each song on this album as a fresh, beguiling new entity. At no point did I weigh up which bits were “changed” or “missing”, I really wasn’t thinking about those cherished songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. I was too busy enjoying these Director’s Cut songs, each one washing over me as a new, satisfying musical moment in itself. The album, as a whole, works beautifully and there’s a few reasons for this.
The production feels consistently bright, punchy, direct and full of oxygen. The windows have been opened up, the tracks breathe in an exhilarating way. Kate’s determination to work this way when she created Aerial is continued into this album. Kate’s vocal performances are my favourite thing on this album, which might seem like a mindlessly obvious thing to say, but I lost count of the many surprising and new ways in which she uses her voice. Kate sings in her deepest tones yet on And So is Love, adding an even “wiser” layer to this meditation on the nature of love and life, before her voice soars upwards again towards the end. A fist punching the air moment for this listener. A glorious John-Lydon-esque moment in Lily where she repeats the word “darkness” was a particular favourite. Kate becomes Molly Bloom in Flower of the Mountain, the directness of Molly’s dreamy stream of consciousness captivated me. The wistful, rambling thoughts of Leopold’s wife tumble out of Kate’s mouth in earthy, confessional tones as the pulsating rhythm somehow suggests Molly’s quickening heartbeat.
The way Kate uses ‘silence’ in this record works brilliantly. Two memorable instances spring to mind; once in Song of Solomon and another time during her utterly different reading of This Woman’s Work, the choral backing reaching an almost agonising intensity before instantly cutting out. For some weird reason, and films are a conceptual thread with this project after all, I pictured that moment in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when Richard Dreyfuss is in his truck at the railway crossing and his turbulent encounter with the UFO comes to an abrupt, breathtaking end. Well, I told you these were first impressions! I loved the new This Woman’s Work, by the way, so delicate with the keyboard acting almost as points and splashes of light in parts.
Many people have picked up on the ‘live’ feel of Deeper Understanding and this is another consistent strength of this record. I felt as if I had been invited to sit in the audience of a concert performance, a special event, with all the immediacy and sense of connection that comes with that. In Moments of Pleasure, the quietest song on the album, there’s a section that made me gasp – it’s as if Kate gives a knowing nod to the people who love this song, and hands it over to us. If I’d had a cigarette lighter at that moment, it would have been lighted and held aloft. I sincerely hope we’ll be treated to this song, performed this way, in a live setting some time in the future. Steve Gadd, who drums on most of the tracks here, is my new hero. The other, no-doubt-about-it, shining stars showcased on this record are the glorious Trio Bulgarka. Their performances from the two original albums really help to cement this new album together. It’s fantastic to hear them again in these new settings. Never Be Mine, full of fascinating new flourishes, is one song I cannot wait to explore much more deeply.
So, after one listening, what was the overall experience like? This may probably change, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had just watched a classic music performance film in my head, something like ‘The Last Waltz’. What absolutely sealed this impression was the closing song, Rubberband Girl. In my imagining this was the KT Bush Band circa ’77 having a lot of fun doing a pre-gig sound check in a pub, and it formed the “end credits” of this imagined film of mine. Perfection. The song is completely re-worked, absolutely thrilling, and so unexpected…the hallmark of Kate Bush, delicious stuff.
What an album. Thank you, Kate, Del and everyone involved in this record”.
On 16th May, Kate Bush’s remarkable Director’s Cut turns thirteen. Considering that anniversary is coming up, many might ask whether there is anything new coming from Bush. As she has spent a lot of time around her previous work, has that compelled her to write anything new. One can never say, though there is always hope that something will come someday. If you have not heard Director’s Cut for a while (or at all) then go and listen to it now. It is an album that deserves to be respected and appreciated. Little did we know in May 2011 that Kate Bush would soon grace us with another studio album. It goes to show she is always…
SURPRISING and unpredictable.