Dutch Kate Bush review + accusation

[leo@duttnph.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)]

I have never posted to this group before, because I do not qualify as
a real love-hound: I like 'The kick inside' a lot, and that's about it.
However, I do follow the group, mostly because you people are so funny :-) 

Anyway, with everybody posting magazine reviews and articles about Kate's new 
album, I thought that at least for completeness' sake, it might be interesting 
to let you know what Holland's leading music magazine 'Oor' has to say about 
it. 'Oor' means 'Ear', and qua contents it is like the Dutch Rolling Stone, 
and heavily biased towards the more 'alternative' circuit, which over here 
does not really include Kate. There are two items: the first is Oor's 
luke-warm review of 'The Sensual World', the second is an accusation that I 
think might be of interest to all the Love-Hounds. The translation is mine, 
and I apologize for any errors: translating to English turns out to be even
more difficult than just writing in English.  

KATE BUSH - THE SENSUAL WORLD
by Bert van de Kamp [A respected Dutch rock journalist]  

Kate Bush made her debut in 1978 with the single 'Wuthering Heights', after 
the book of the same name by Emily Bronte, and I can remember thinking: this 
girl is brilliant. After that she made five albums, which suffered increasingly
from an excess of production. No expenses were spared, but that was not 
always necessary for me. Kate composes beautiful melodies, and on top of that 
writes highly intriguing lyrics for them, but she feels she has to manifest 
herself as a studio-tigress as well. 
After her last album 'Hounds of Love' ('85) I wrote: "I would like to take 
away all her toys and listen to her alone with her piano.". For now that is 
not going to be. 
La Bush has worked four years at 'The Sensual World' and again takes all the 
production-credits herself, so the stereosound is once again chock full of 
sounds and effects, everything wall-to-wall and richly draped. It all sounds 
very spectacular, but where is Kate? The stars of this record are the Trio 
Bulgarka en bagpipe-vituoso Davey Spillane.  
The title song, also out on single is very beautiful. Kate has dared to put 
to music a part of the soliloquy of Molly Bloom, with which James Joyce ended 
his masterpiece 'Ullyses', and she asked Spillane to create fitting Irish 
sounds to go with it, all with the aforementioned result. 
But then I hear her singing in 'Deeper Understanding' about how well she 
communicates with her home-computer, and the Trio Bulgarka, which has 
probably never seen a computer, sing beautifully along with it and I think: 
this is all wrong. The artistic unity is missing, this is take-away work, 
kindergarten stuff. I'd rather put on a record of the Bulgarian trio 
themselves. 
Textually Kate again turns everything upside-down, too much to mention here. 
Central in any case is the theme of woman-hood. Beside Molly's soliloquy in 
the title-song, we can also mention songs as 'Between a Man and a Woman' 
and 'This Woman's Work'. Again she gives us a few enchanting melodies. 
'Never be mine' for instance, where Spillane, the Bulgarka's and Kate 
herself sound *very* good together: "Ooh the thrill and the hurting..." 
'The Fog' is also great (orchestra: Michael Kamen, Celtic harp: Alan Stivell). 
That makes three direct hits. Am I allowed to have my reservations as to the 
rest? 
"Life in the ghost of Bush. Ooh, it's a sensual world, baby."  

[This appeared in 'Oor' Nr. 20, 7 october 1989]  

[Now for the second, more interesting piece, which appeared two weeks later 
in 'Oor' Nr. 21, 21 october 1989:]  

BUSH FRAUD ?    [In Dutch: 'Bush Bedrog?', a nice alliteration] 

'The Sensual World' is the name of the new single by Kate Bush. Although, 
'new'? I have known the melody which her accompanist Davy Spillane plays in 
this song on bagpipes for years. 
In the fall of 1985 I was going to interview Kate Bush in England. Because 
she then already had shown her love for (Irish) folk music, I had brought 
a cassette of my folk favourites. The interview first was cancelled, but 
after a few days La Bush called me after all at home (collect). The 
interview was never published (too thin), but I did send her the tape 
afterwards. On that tape was the from Yugoslavian Macedonia originating 
'Antice, dzanam, Dusice', performed by the Haagse [i.e. from The Hague] 
ensemble Calgija, conducted by etnomusicologist Wouter Swets. Originally 
a song about a poor girl who had to take care of her younger sister, and 
therefore couldn't get a husband; in Swets' (instrumental) version almost 
as beautiful as 'Mother Nature's Song' by the Beatles. According to the 
booklet of the LP and CD 'The Sensual World' the title song was written by 
La Bush herself: not true. Was this traditional melody suggested to her 
by the Trio Bulgarka, guests on the album, or did my cassette reach her 
home address in Kent, after all?  

[by Jan Libbenga]   

Again my apologies for the clunky tranlations. Oh, and by the way: 
I *like* the Sensual World, whether Kate wrote it or not...  

Fading back into silent monitorhood,  

Leo Breebaart (leo @ duttnph.tudelft.nl)