S'more reviews of Our Kate

[nessus (Doug Alan)]

I subscribe to Matter and the latest issue (June 86) just came in the
mail....

Tusco Vee of the Meatmen likes Danielle Dax.  Everybody loves The
Butthole Surfers.

Matter is the last place in the world  I would expect to find a review
of *Hounds of Love*, but here one is 9 months after the album was
released:

	If Kate Bush fronted an anonymous band on 4AD (the label whose
	over-the-top production techniques she seems to be emulating
	of late) [...]

I think this guy is putting the chicken before the egg....

	[...] and put out records sporting jackets that look like
	baggies full of wet tar instead of big pictures of her own
	face, maybe more chronic hipsters'd be willing to acknowledge
	the slightly skewed genius she very apparently possesses.
	M'self, I've always been glad she's just Kate Bush, an
	auteurist who doesn't wear her heart or her quasi-mystical
	pretentions on her sleeve -- hell, no, she's fashioned an
	entire *wardrobe* from the stuff.  She's a singer/songwriter
	so idiosyncratic, so desperately unhip herself that you can't
	compare her to anyone else you'd even read about in this
	mag... couldn't even call her "new wave" -- not even as an
	*insult*.  Course considerations like pretention and hipness
	are as out of place in talking about Kate Bush as Kate Bush is
	when your talking about trends in pop music.  Anyways, sounds
	to me like *Hounds* is her best yet, songwriting on par with
	*The Kick Inside* and *Lionheart* (her first couple) while the
	singing ain't so theatrical, and the
	everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-with-the-diposal-unit-intact
	production of the proceeding rec, *The Dreaming*, is handled
	here a lot more effectively [...]

Foo!

	[...] though, it's still a tad overbaked (use of taped voices
	esp. being a periodic nuisance).  Small huff, really -- the
	only thing better than this record'd be a twelve-page photo
	spread of its mommy in *New Look*.  Kidding, kidding.  -- Chet
	Howland.

And now for another little look at Kate Bush in the British press....
Curiously enough, that bozo Richard Cook, who wrote the wretched cover
article on Kate Bush in Sounds, also wrote this review of "The Big
Sky" for Sounds a short while back, which was the Single of the Week:

	A curious choice, and perhaps the winner by default.  In this
	big pile of records, the few good shots are content to pick
	over small pleasures and little details.  This is the only
	giant record here, the only one to overreach and maintain
	honour.  The rehabilitation of Bush is a bit much: she is
	still the sort of girl who pours all her books and beads into
	the pot and stirs it up until you come out with an opera.
	Most of her records smell of tarot cards, kitchen curtains,
	and lavender pillows to me.  But bits of *Hounds of Love* make
	something mischievous or even demonic come out of he throat,
	and 'The Big Sky' is a moment of real mad bravado.  It starts
	like it's going to be one of the digital warrior dances Bush
	puts together when she wants to be uptempo and then a whole
	planet seems to be swirling around her voice.  The best and
	most threatening thing that this bizarre talent has ever done.

This is a review of "The Big Sky" by Stud Brothers for Melody Maker:

	Kate Bush, like some lithe Russian gymnast who makes even the
	most difficult exercise appear easy, gracefully treads the
	uneasy tightrope of progression and integrity without ever
	falling into indulgence and elitism.  She has in fact, with
	her every release, managed to maintain a uniqueness without
	ever losing her public, something Siouxsie was almost praised
	for.  But unlike The Banshees, she always sounds like herself
	and never sounds the same, and that's a difficult task.  "The
	Big Sky" sounds like Kate Bush, but more importantly, like
	Hipsway and The Young Gods, it sounds like 1986.  Truly
	gymnastic.


"Love will get you like a case of anthrax
 And that's one thing I don't want to catch"

 Doug