Review of the album from the Oct. 21 _New Musical Express_

[ed@das.llnl.gov (Edward Suranyi)]

Here's the review of the album from the Oct. 21 _New Musical Express_.
(Yes, it's yet another rave.)

LET THEM EAT KATE

KATE BUSH
The Sensual World
(EMI LP/Cassette/CD)

     Four years to produce one LP works out at ten minutes per year
of 'The Sensual World', with an extra three minutes 48 for cassette
and CD buyers.  This means that Kate Bush is either very lazy or very
dedicated. 'The Sensual World' is an album, luckily, which suggests
the later.
     Kate Bush doesn't have the easy options open to other pop loners.
Prince has a veritable museum of styles to work with.  Madonna and Jacko
have the solidity of dance and a flair for controversy. 
     Bush only really has a voice (or rather, set of voices) and an attitude.
Her capacity to make different musics has generally scuppered her in the
charts -- witness the way one of her best songs, 'The Dreaming', died at
number 48 in the singles charts because it was "odd".
     And while the other pop loners, geniuses though some of them are,
have well-defined and self-created personalities which will do a certain
amount of donkey work for them -- observe particularly how Morrissey has
successfully coasted along since the Smiths ended just on two or three
good songs and a strong public image -- Kate Bush has no such automatic
pilot.
     Bush's idiosyncrasies, marketable though they might well be, are
not exploited, probably because Kate Bush hasn't thought of doing so.
She could have an album out every year if she presented herself as a
reclusive hippy Madonna, famous for being a bit odd and with carefully
stage-managed rare appearances.
     However, the Kate Bush persona isn't an image.  Her "reclusiveness"
seems to be more of a normal desire for privacy than an ace way of 
creating speculation, her "hippiness" merely a set of musical and
aesthetic values (liking Pink Floyd, wearing long dresses, going for
vaguely mystical ideas, believing in the value of non-Western musical
and social set-ups and generally being the sort of person who has never
taken all the Arnold Schwarzenegger films out of the video shop) which
she shares with a fair amount of non-pop people.  So there she is, at
home with the Bushes and loved one Del, toiling in the studio and very
hard work it must be.
     'The Sensual World', it must be said, bears the signs of its labours
lightly.  From its gliding, dreamy title track to the raw sex (I think)
of 'The Rocket's Tail', [sic] this LP is as easy to listen to as a pop
song.
     The lyrics range across all topics, from a bizarre tune about 
having an accidental bop with Hitler ('Heads We're Dancing') to a 
woman and her relationship with her computer ('Deeper Understanding'),
from the title track's paraphrasing of the last page of _Ulysses_
(hope it doesn't spoil the ending for me and everybody else who only
got as far as page 10), to the slightly more conventional romantic
musings of 'Love And Anger'.
     Along the way, Kate's Dad turns up to say a few words about Kate
abeing grown up, and Trio Bulgarka do exploding rocket impressions
on the by no means ambiguous penis talk (I pretty much reckon) of
'The Rocket's Tail'.  The general impression, as ever with Kate Bush's
lyrics, is of somebody with a fairly unorthodox worldview, an 
unusual interest in the story song, and a flair for inventive personal
examination.
     The music is -- at one go! -- seemless and incongruously bizarre.
We get the latest studio technology, natch, and we get Uillean pipes.
We get Bush playing the most Lionel Ritchie-type piano and we get her
singing like she was a rare visitor to any known Earth language.
     And on the peculiar and very funny tribute to the male member
(I'm certain about this) 'The Rocket's Tail', Trio Bulgarka's 
voices, which are very *now*, are asked to accompany a clonking
great '70s progressive rock solo, which is ver *not now thanks*.
It works, too, in ways which only the mind of Kate Bush could possibly
explain, and then only to someone she had known for many years.
     The Trio Bulgarka part very much exemplifies Bush's attitude.
It bothers her not, as it might bother some, that they are revered
for their ethnicity and their alleged simple Bulgarian country ways.
Were she Paul Simon or Peter Gabriel, she might feel obliged to 
include at least one song called 'Simple Bulgarian Country Ways', and
she would take immense pains to find a cod Eastern European setting
for their voices.
     Instead she plugs in the Fender Wankblaster and lets rip.  
Everything is grist to Kate Bush's mill; she is not referring to
anything or anyone in the way that nearly all modern music, from
SAW to Prince, from The Waterboys to Public Enemy does, which is
to use styles, samples, and riffs like some kind of musical
sponsorship; she's using all this stuff as ingredients in a total
genius stew.
     'The Sensual World' is a strange and remarkable record which has
very little to do with anything else musical, a fair bit to do with
the real world of sex, love and introversion, and everything to do
with uniqueness.  Kate Bush remains alone, ahead and a genius.
(9 [out of 10, I guess])
			  -- David Quantick

There's a real bizarre drawing of Kate surrounding by strange images
that goes with this review.





Ed (Edward Suranyi)        |"Kate Bush:  Needs more exposure in the United
Dept. of Applied Science   |     States, but a magnificent talent."
UC Davis/Livermore         |                 -- Robert Hilburn,
ed@das.llnl.gov            |                    _Los Angeles Times_