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>From ins_aset@jhunix Fri Dec 13 10:23:53 1985 remote from jhunix
Date:     Fri, 13 Dec 85 10:23:44 EST
From:     Susanne E Trowbridge <ins_aset@jhunix>
Subject:  Kate du Jour

In the latest SPIN magazine, "HOL" is their Platter du Jour (best of the
month, I guess).  The review is rather simplistic but there's a nice pic
of KB in a weird little hat with a tassel...

(Reprinted w/out permission, of course.)

If Kate Bush had been a writer instead of a musician, she might have
written something like "Alice in Wonderland."  She writes children's
songs for adults, constantly drifting into girlish dreams, while main-
taining a vibrant sense of romantic adventure.  Every little daydream
and all her fragile emotions are projected into a fantasyland of poetic
imagery and off-beat music.  With traces of classical, operatic, tribal,
and twisted pop styles, Kate creates music that observes no boundaries 
of musical structure or inner expression.

Though she has always been a top 10 artist in Europe (this album was
No. 1 in England as of this writing), her odd style and even odder vocal
squeal have always kept her off the American charts.  (ST note - Well,
"The Man With The Child In His Eyes" *did* make it to #89 or thereabouts...)
But even though Kate continues on an offbeat course, this album might gain
her some well-deserved recognition from the American mainstream.

On "HOL," Kate continues making Gothic pop with brooding string arrange-
ments, sparse and dissonant percussion (ST note - sparse??), and her
bittersweet vocal squawks and squeaks.  While she introduced intermittent
pop touches on her previous album, "The Dreaming," her music is still
anything but pop.  On side one's "RUTH" and the title cut, she maintains
her romantic edge, but structures her songs more accessibly, singing
within a range that isn't overly abrasive or far-reaching.  These changes
don't appear to have been made as concessions, and certainly don't hurt.

The rest of side one has more of Kate's twisted musical sensibility and
the lyrics deal with her confused romantic desires.  She wants to be
enraptured by love, but always ends up shattered and lonely.  Just when
she wants to be left to herself, she becomes morose in her independence.
On "The Big Sky," Kate again adds a more accessible touch, with hints of
psychedelia, but then returns to the familiar womb of her childhooe
fantasyland on "Mother Stands for Comfort."  The side closes with "Cloud-
bursting" (sic), which appears to be an anti-nuclear song with an arrange-
ment framed by haunting orchestration and a minimal rhythmic approach.

While side one is subtitled "The HOL" and is a collection of quite diffe-
rent songs, side two, entitled "The Ninth Wave," is a somewhat loosely
interconnected collection of musical movements that are even more 
bizarre and mystical than Kate's previous works.  She dreams again on the
operatic "And Dream of Sheep" and is emotionally trapped on the claustro-
phobic "Under Ice."  On "Waking the Witch," one of the most puzzling
songs on the album, Kate brings a funkier edge to her music and seems to
be in a state of spiritual confusion.  Any other interpretations beyond
that should be left to individual opinion.

It took three years for Kate to make this album, and it was two years
before that that she last released an album.  (ST note - I thought "The
Dreaming" was 82)  With no plans to tour America, Kate is likely to remain
obscure on this side of the Atlantic.  While her eclecticism is well
(scratch that) welcomed and rewarded in her homeland her genius still
goes ignored here - a situation that is truly a shame for an artist so adventurous and naturally theatrical.

Comments?????????  At least the guy tried to go a little deeper than most
reviewers... (by Steve Matteo, btw.)

-Sue