INTERVIEW:
Leah Kardos (Author of the 33 1/3 Book of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love)
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THROWING ahead to 14th November…
and the release of the 33 1/3 book on Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. It is going to be so exciting. Bush’s most acclaimed and well-known album is now being brought to the classic series. Short books that are all about terrific albums. I am not sure whether you know about the series but, for years, various albums have been brought to life. Running at 150 pages or so, they are digestible and handy guides that go deep into classics. It has been a pleasure interviewing Leah Karos about her upcoming book on Hounds of Love. The Australian academic, musician and writer resides in London. A clearly massive Kate Bush fan, Kardos “publishes and releases music with Bigo & Twigetti, contributes reviews and criticism to The Wire, and has written a book that critically analyses David Bowie's Last Works, published by Bloomsbury Academic in early 2022”. I was keen to know more about a book that I was engrossed in! Having written about Hounds of Love multiple times through the years, I thought that I knew all there was to know! However, reading through Kardos’s book gave me fresh insights and perspectives. Passionately and beautifully written, it will be a terrific introduction to those new to the album in addition to those who have heard it multiple times. Before coming to the interview, here is some more information about a book every Kate Bush fan needs to pre-order:
“Hounds Of Love invites you to not only listen, but to cross the boundaries of sensory experience into realms of imagination and possibility. Side A spawned four Top 40 hit singles in the UK, 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)', 'Cloudbusting', 'Hounds of Love' and 'The Big Sky', some of the best-loved and most enduring compositions in Bush's catalogue. On side B, a hallucinatory seven-part song cycle called The Ninth Wave broke away from the pop conventions of the era by using strange and vivid production techniques that plunge the listener into the psychological centre of a near-death experience. Poised and accessible, yet still experimental and complex, with Hounds Of Love Bush mastered the art of her studio-based songcraft, finally achieving full control of her creative process. When it came out in 1985, she was only 27 years old.
This book charts the emergence of Kate Bush in the early-to-mid-1980s as a courageous experimentalist, a singularly expressive recording artist and a visionary music producer. Track-by-track commentaries focus on the experience of the album from the listener's point of view, drawing attention to the art and craft of Bush's songwriting, production and sound design. It considers the vast impact and influence that Hounds Of Love has had on music cultures and creative practices through the years, underlining the artist's importance as a barrier-smashing, template-defying, business-smart, record-breaking, never-compromising role model for artists everywhere.
Table of Contents
Track Listing
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The first woman
2. Still dreaming
3. I put this moment… here
4. Hounds Of Love
5. The Ninth Wave
6. A ritual in six steps
7. Before The Dawn
8. Blackbirds
9. Wave after wave”.
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Hi Leah. Congratulations on your 33 1/3 book on Hounds of Love! How does it feel that it is completed and out in the world very shortly?
Thanks Sam! I'm really pleased that it will be out soon, despite the usual jitters one feels in these situations. I'm looking forward to there finally being a Kate Bush volume in the 33 1/3 series, and I'm feeling really grateful that I was given the opportunity to contribute this one. The whole experience has been a supreme pleasure, I've got to say.
Before discussing it, tell me when Kate Bush came into your life. What was your introduction to her music?
Like a lot of people in my generation, I had a general awareness because big, early-ish tracks like "Wuthering Heights", "Wow" and "Babooshka" got a lot of airplay in Australia in the 1980s. I definitely recall the videos making a deep impression - I grew up with my eyeballs glued to 'Rage', our down under version of MTV - I remember feeling kid-affinity for "Peter" in the 'Cloudbusting' video, and attempting the "Wuthering Heights" moves in my bedroom mirror. But the first L.P. that I discovered for myself and loved on my own was Never for Ever. This would have been when I was a student at music college, around the tail end of the '90s.
“I enjoyed the ritualistic and folkloric themes that bubbled and echoed as I went”
Obviously Hounds of Love means a lot to you. How did you tackle writing about the album? What was your writing routine like and how did you approach researching?
Once the commission came through I spent a long time listening to it, thinking about it and collecting notes. The book needed to be 33k words in the end, but I had over 200k notes at one point - lengthy tangents on whaling shanties, oceanic metaphors in literature and myth, the ins and outs of sequencing compositions on the Fairlight CMI and the Linn Drum, Irish diddling, the psychology of stage fright, Arthur's Avalon and loads more besides - and what I had was an incredibly unwieldy pile of ideas, so had to seriously rethink my approach. I needed to strike a balance between the story that I wanted to tell, writing an accessible entry point for new fans, as well as making the book a worthwhile experience for the hardcores that already know everything. The story I really wanted to tell, aside from writing about the music itself, was how Hounds of Love marked her arrival as an artist and music producer of culture-changing influence. Once that was decided, everything else fell into place.
Was there anything new you learned about Hounds of Love or Kate Bush when writing the book?
For me, yes. There were connections between songs, and correspondences and reflections between sides A and B that I hadn't quite seen before. I enjoyed the ritualistic and folkloric themes that bubbled and echoed as I went. Following the story of how it was made, it was clear that Kate's creative process was a very slow and largely solitary one, and not necessarily shared, say, between a bunch of people hanging out in a studio. Like when Del downplayed his involvement in the process in that 1993 interview saying "I don’t really feel that anybody has that much involvement in what she does, it all comes out of her own head." What that meant was I couldn't really get any useful insights from the session musicians or anyone else that was brought in to help here and there, because they didn't have the 'why'. It seems obvious to say it now, but this was an important realisation to have when writing a book about an album and how it was made. It led me to focus less on what Kate might have meant by those choices and more on what the music can do from the listener's point of view.
“For me, the song is empowering; the best articulation of determination and desire ever inscribed in a pop song”
Apart from the genius singles from the first side and the second side, The Ninth Wave, it seems that Mother Stands for Comfort is like an odd one out and never gets talked about. What are your feelings about the song and how do you think it relates to the rest of the album and connects the songs?
I think 'Mother Stands for Comfort' can offer an important perspective that balances and binds the themes of side A and B together: the comfort of family, the primal, unambiguous nature of maternal love, the fierceness of Mother Nature. Beyond the lyric, the music and sound design says so much more; Eberhard Weber's bass is like poetry, right? The emotional juxtaposition between Kate's foreground and background voices, the gentle rocking-chair beat disturbed by violent smashes. High drama minimalism! What an amazing track!
In terms of legacy and reframing Hounds of Love, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) springs to mind. It has taken on a new life. What were your reactions when it enjoyed resurgence in 2022 and what does the song mean to you?
I was completely tickled for her, and all of the new, younger listeners who got to discover her and her work because of Stranger Things. The timing of it all was perfect in a way - with everyone feeling so isolated and uncertain about the world coming out of the Covid-19 lockdowns, 'Running Up That Hill' and it's message of radical empathy and connection really felt like a tonic. Nearly 40 years on, the song's power only grows. For me, the song is empowering; the best articulation of determination and desire ever inscribed in a pop song.
I think many people do not discuss Kate Bush as an innovative and incredible producer when they speak of Hounds of Love. Do you feel she is under-appreciated as a producer?
She is absolutely, criminally underrated as a producer. Not only in terms of her technical and aesthetic achievements, and the ground she broke as a mainstream adopter of cutting-edge music technologies, but also in terms of her vast influence in pop music culture. There is a dearth of female producers in pop music, period. Back then and today, the situation hasn't really changed much. As you've seen, I devote quite a chunk of space in my little book to yell about what an elite and historically important producer she is. If I had more space I would have written even MORE about it.
“I hope lots of essays and think pieces get written and people are inspired to find the album again and dig in deep with it”
Hounds of Love turns forty next year. How do you think it should be talked about and marked?
Hmm. The record is already, rightfully considered a masterpiece by critical consensus, and with the Stranger Things synch placement, it feels like it's back at the top of the collective consciousness's record pile. So I don't know how the 40th anniversary should be marked... Being selfish for a second, I wouldn't mind having a deluxe expanded release with all the B-sides, remixes and the Hounds of Love alt-version/demo included, or if I was going to be extra selfish, a Dolby Atmos/surround mix of The Ninth Wave on Blu-ray - imagine how perfect? Aside from my vain wishing, I hope lots of essays and think pieces get written and people are inspired to find the album again and dig in deep with it.
Every Kate Bush fan should go and buy the 33 1/3 Hounds of Love book. What is your biggest takeaway of the album or favourite section of the book?
My favourite sections are the track by track commentaries, when I switch to present tense and focus on purely experiencing the music. Everything up to that point in the book is like elaborate table setting at a banquet, but the commentaries to me feel like the moment when we can eat the music together.
Finally, you can select one song from Hounds of Love and I will include it here. Which shall we go with?
'Jig of Life', so we can put this moment here.