New Music inKTerview (part II)

[Henry Chai <chai%utflis%math.waterloo.edu@RELAY.CS.NET>]

Here's the rest of the transciption of the New Music interview.
According to Mike Chmilar, the Much Music interview is exactly the same,
except the videos are "fleshed out".  Also, thanks to IED who pointed
out that the "dauchy" in the first part of the transciption is probably
"dodgy".
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"You can find dance everywhere in Kate's earlier work.  Like David
    Bowie, she studied with choreographer Lindsey Kemp, and has incor-
    porated both choreographed dance and spontaneous movement in her
    live and video work." { clips from _Suspended_in_Gaffa_,
    _There_Goes_a_Tenner_, and several videos from TWS }

NM: Obviously you are someone who feels that the world of dance and
    the world of rock can coexist.  But does dance absorb rock better
    than rock absorbs dance?

KB: I think there is a very sort of basic logic to that, in that if
    you dance, it's very very unusual to dance without music.  Dance
    is always something that is done to music, this is what dance is
    about, you know, the rhythm; even if it's just someone tapping out
    rhythms on a drum.  That is, music is sound, and dance works hand
    in hand with sound.  And I think music can stand on it's own, but
    in some cases what it makes you want to do is dance.

NM: I think _Running-up_that_Hill_ is one of the better examples of
    how dance can be used well in rock music.

KB: Well it's very nice that you think that, because very much what we
    were trying to achieve was to make it a serious piece of dance,
    which I didn't feel like doing until [or "like I've done enough
    'till"?] that point.  I played around with dance, but in a very
    sort of theatrical way.  And in some ways it was a sort of like
    saying goodbye to that dancing side of me, by doing it in a very
    pure way.  It is a very pure dance video without any theatre or
    anything attached, because I feel very much a shift now, from
    dance into film imagery, so they are two very different things.
    Not that dance couldn't still be incorporated, but it's not the
    same attitude.  {_Running_up_that_Hill_}

"The years between 17 and 27 are normally considered to be the most
    developmental in an artist's life.  When Mozart was 17, he was
    playing to the crowned heads of Europe.  When Kate Bush was 17 she
    had her first hit single with _Wuthering_Heights_.  I asked her
    how spending those 10 years as a successful pop singer influenced
    her art.

KB: I'm not convinced they are *the* most influential years, I must
    say.  I think when you're a kid, they're incredibly influential, I
    mean so many writers, and I don't know about singers, but from a
    creative point of view you're always drawing back to things way
    back in your childhood.  But a lot of things have changed for me
    in that period you were talking about, and I think it's been 
    *incredibly* useful for me to be successful during this time, in that
    I've been able to work with people and find sources of information
    that perhaps I wouldn't have, otherwise.  Unfortunately, so much
    of what we do in this business is based on money.  Equipment is so
    very expensive.  So if you are successful, you stand a chance of
    having more of this equipment available and that does definitely
    affect the way you work. { _Strange_Phenomena_ }

NM: When listening to your album, from the very first to the most re-
    cent, There's a change in your voice and it seems that your voice
    is lower and a little more aggressive, as if you're working harder
    in punching out the lyrics.

KB: Lyrics have always been very important for me, and all people go
    through phases of things they try out, and at that period when I
    made that first album, I was very much experimenting with a higher
    vocal range.  It was just something I wanted to try out, and also
    the production has a tremendous amount to do with things like
    that.  But my voice has changed a lot, and I think that is basi-
    cally what I see as the difference, that as I grow up, my voice
    has grown up with me and has become stronger and stronger, and I
    can do things now with my voice that were not easy for me to do
    years ago.

NM: Has your voice lost any of its range?

KB: I can get up there if I need to, but I just prefer working in this
    range now.  I think a lot of females go through that.  If you
    listen to Joni Mitchell, her early stuff is very high, and with
    each album she gets lower and lower.  It's just a progressive
    thing for people.  { _Cloudbusting_ }

NM: I've been noticing a theme of science in the last few sings you
    had out.  Cloudbusting was an experiment that went very well, but
    _X_4_ was one that want wrong.  But in both cases the scientists
    were sympathetic characters, but they were frustrated and manipu-
    lated.  Is that what you think about scientists?

KB: I don't think it's always what I think about scientists, but I
    think they are fascinating in that so often they're trying to
    create something that they consider positive, productive and very
    much something that would help mankind, but so often along the way
    those good intentions end up being used, particularly by other
    people, for completely the opposite reasons.  Particularly experi-
    ments that end up being used by the military, things like the atom
    bomb.  I can see that perhaps when the guy was originally playing
    with that idea, he had no idea where he'd end up, and that I'm
    sure that he wouldn't have the evil intentions in his head ini-
    tially, he was so caught up, so obsessed with the pure level of
    the science that he didn't actually realize how it could be used.

NM: What do you think about scientific experimentation -- are there
    limits to the things that people should be working on?

KB: I think that's very much part of the fascination, is that people
    have to do that, that's what human beings are about -- discovering
    things, and perhaps the problem is that they're normally always
    connected by forces that do not have that same kind of creative
    curiosity.  The consequences, that's the problem; the consequences
    are quite often hind sight, rather than on the way.  
    { _Experiment_IV_ } 
    I consider music a really positive force, it's something that is
    there to help people, to make them happy, to make them think, so
    many wonderful things, music therapy... It's a very positive energy
    and there's something incredibly beautiful about music and the
    thought of people using sound in such a nega- tive way which, there
    are definitely sonic experiments that go on, that are used by the
    military, it's so obscene, the irony of using something that's so
    beautiful in a way to actually kill people rather than help them --
    I find fascinating.

NM: A lot of your songs and videos are filled with frightening or
    disquieting images.  Are you an uneasy person?

KB: I think anyone that has any kind of creative outlet is uneasy, and
    that's what makes them need to express themselves.  I think all
    human beings are uneasy on some level.  How can you not be when we
    don't really know what we're doing here and what we're meant to do
    with it, it's the continual questioning going on. { _Breathing_ }
-- 
                 Henry Chai   "I always look for serendipity."
                {utzoo,decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!utcsri!utflis!chai
                         BITNET: chai@utflis.utoronto
Disclaimer: all opinions, pinions and onions expressed herein are solely mine.