So happy to be alive...

[Michael Mendelson <mendel@cs.uiuc.edu>]

As I sit in my office on the first bitter day of autumn, The Sensual
World begins again for what is about the sixth or seventh time since
this afternoon when it left the store and became a part of me.  I
couldn't imagine this album being released in any other season on any
other day... this was just perfect.

The Sensual World is the softest, silkiest, smoothest and most
intensely personal of Kate's work yet.  At the same time, Kate seems to
have mellowed a bit -- there's no Big Sky; no Babooshka; no Wow; not
even a Pulling Out the Pin.  Instead, the music seems easier to
appreciate more quickly...  that impenetrable wall erected in The
Dreaming and fortified by such Ninth Wave songs as Waking the Witch and
Jig of Life has all but crumbled and been replaced by a new peace -- a
pre-song GIGGLE!  Kate is "all grown up now" and it shows.  There are
no backwards vocals, no indecipherable sounds, and on the surface this
album seems alot simpler than previous ones.  Deceptively so.  Broken
lyrics are replaced by rich string arrangements, and strange, melifluous
instruments.

For me, and for Kate, this album represents a couple of firsts:

1) For the first time, I feel I have "caught up" to Kate.  This is the
   first album I have been conscious of on the very day of its release.
   So happy to be alive.

2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first time any
   non-Kate females have sung *at all* on any Kate track.  How
   perfectly appropriate that it be 3 sixty-some year old Bulgarian
   women.  If any females could have persevered enough to attain a
   Kately enough level to be allowed to sing on her album, I guess they
   could.

I, too, disagree with the choice of Love and Anger as an American
single.  I suspect The Sensual World would have done fine, but in my
opinion, Deeper Understanding would make a wonderful single.
Everything about this song is fantastic.  As with the album as a whole,
this effort is trance-inducing, hypnotic.  There lies through the chord
of the album an irresistable subconscious appeal.

The only (minor) complaint I have is with Heads We're Dancing, which,
despite having the best title of any song on the album, would be better
off not referring to Hitler.  Kate says in NME that she'll be angry if
anyone is offended by this song, but this unfortunately reflects Kate's
lack of full understanding of the profundity of the Holocaust and said
genocidists crucial role therein.  Hitler's crimes against society are
so heinous, that even a cautious reference tends to trivialize these
acts.  I, and many to whom I am close, feel strongly that allusion to
Hitler in any light (e.g. his human side, attractiveness in the midst
of "devil," etc.), however fleeting and cautious, must simply be
avoided no matter the temptation.

Aside from this small blemish, Kate has once again out-done herself.
That she can be so consistently excellent time after time is indeed
beyond mortal limit.  Whatever her secret, I hope she can continue and
live long.  The Sensual World was most worth the wait, and any future
Kate effort will be again, even if it's five years the next time.

					Sensually Yours,
			        			. 
			 			 /\/\  / /\/\
						/ / /_/ / / / 
						
						"No pinky ring hustlers,
						 No sabre-tooth neighbours"