It may be long but it's about Kate

[Dave Armstrong <8548222@wwu.EDU>]

This article is in _OPTION_  which just came out.  This is the first of
two parts.  I will try to get part two out tomorrow.




                             PERFECT VISION

                  The Insights and Sounds of Kate Bush



                       by Maria Montgomery Sarnoff



     "I don't know about being a perfectionist," says Kate Bush, describing 
her attitude towards creating her unique brand of baroque pop music.  Coming 
from one whose recordings demonstrate utmost control and an immaculate sense 
of detail, the remark seems practically modest.
     Though she might not call herself a prefectionist, Kate Bush's music has 
achieved, over the course of her career, an unparalleled type of musical 
chiaroscuro - especially in her latest release, _The_Sensual_World_.  As her 
musical development progresses, Kate Bush has found many voices beside the 
ethereal one featured on her initial hit,"Wuthering Heights."  Her first two 
albums, _The_Kick_Inside_ and _Lionheart_, were dominated by Bush's trademark 
soprano voice set amid finely-crafted, effervescent songs.  Since then, her 
voice has acquired an earthy, sybaritic quality that she exploits in such 
new songs as "Walk Strait Down the Middle," in which she trills in Brazilian ,
as she alternately hums and growls to create a more sumptuous aural atmoshpere.
Her lyrics are set in richly ornate musical settings which upon first listen 
can be almost too much to consume.  But like other rich comestibles, her work 
is seductive in its luxuriant excess.
     "It's a layered procedure.  I take a lot of time writing, and thinking."  
She emphasizes the latter as she sits back on the couch, describing the process
by which she produces her musical strata.  "The actual performances from people
are got very quickly.  So hopefully, there's a tremendous amount of spontaneity
performance-wise.  But I have taken a lot of time between to change bits of 
the songs.
      "You'll do something with people that works out really well," Bush 
explains.  "And it works out so well it starts taking you somewhere else.  You 
think, `I wish that worked so well that I could do THIS with the song.'  Some-
times I do that - take the song away and make it become something better.  
Working with other musicians is often the key.  What worries me is that 
although the process is very spontaneous, I always feel that it sounds com-
plicated."
     It's a chilly day in Manhattan, so cold that the ice statues by the Plaza 
are still in their pristime state.  The threat of snow hangs in the air.  Kate 
Bush snuggles deeply into her forest green blazer as she looks out into gray 
sky, soaking in her wintry surrounding.  Even from the comfort of the indoors, 
Bush is one evidently immersed in the world around her.  She ponders a question
as to whether she is trying to create an aural environment with her densely 
textured songs.
     "Yes," Bush answers.  "That's kind of what it feels like and I'd hate that
to sound pretentious, because it could.  It's like trying to paint a picture.  
Each song is like a little picture, and you've got to have the hill there, at 
the right proportion."  Her hand motions toward an imaginary landscape.  "When 
you look at a painting, even a simple painting, it's still got to have the 
proportions and everything that goes with that.  Some songs will be so quick 
and easy to write.  Some lyrics will be so quick.  And yet on other songs they 
won't.  They are all individual, and each one has a tricky bit.
     "I suppose from a production point of view, the main thing I work toward 
is a sense of texture.  When a song starts, you probably want it to be just 
sometimes quite small.  And then you want it to get very big here so that 
there's a real sense of climax, and then bring it down again or keep it 
building.  All these thing have shape and texture," she continues, as if 
visualizing her music in front of her.  "I suppose that's just how I work.  
It's like trying to give the song the right proportions so that when it's big, 
it's really big and not too big and not to small.  Instruments, different 
sounds and flavors, really affect all that.
     "I think the voice is very much an instrument.  Especially with backing 
vocals, because you don't have to have the emphasis on trying to carry the 
whole story.  You can really treat it like an instrument.  It's fun just 
experimenting with different sounds and shapes."

     Perhaps it is Bush's preoccupation with experimentation which has kept 
her from breaking through to a mass audience in this country.  Fame, on the 
scale which the English singer and composer has experienced in the United 
Kingdom and Europe, has so far eluded her here in the states.  Despite this, 
there exists a huge cult following that fosters Kate Bush fan clubs and 
fanzines, both here and abroad.  Her first two albums, _The_Kick_Inside_ and 
_Lionheart_ (both 1978), are filled with piano-dominated songs that hold the 
promise of things to come.  On those early works she was already using her 
voice for unusual effects in the overdubbed backing vocals.  Unusual instru-
ments such as mandolins, beer bottles, mandocello, and panpipes were being 
integrated into her songwriting.
     _Never_For_Ever_ (1980), her third album, is in many ways a transitional 
one for Bush.  On that LP she was introduced to the Fairlight synthesizer, 
which has since become integral to her compositions and arrangments.  "The 
Fairlight was incredibly important," she relates, "because it was really what 
I had been looking for but had never thought possible.  I used to play the 
piano, and the only instruments I had to work with from that were the piano 
and my voice.  So I used to put a lot of emphasis on backing vocals and 
arrangements on the piano, because they were - in a way - trying to be violins 
and trumpets, and my voice was trying to be strings.  That's all I had to work 
with.  I was into the CS-80, but I really didn't like synthesizers as such, 
because they weren't natural sounds, and that's what I really loved.  
Discovering the Fairlight gave me a whole new writing tool as well as an 
arranging tool, like the difference between writing a song on a piano or on a 
guitar.  With a Fairlight you've got everything, a tremendous range of things. 
It completely opened me up to sounds and textures.  And I could experiment 
with these in a way I could never have done without it.  It would have cost 
too much money.  The Fairlight gave me a very private experimental instrument."
     As an example of Bush's adventurous arrangements, the title track of 
Bush's latest release, _The_Sensual_World_, has a unique blending of both 
celtic and middle eastern sounds.  The song was adapted from a traditional 
Macedonian piece sent to Bush by a fan, Jan Libbenga.  "It was so beautiful 
that I was completely taken by it.  So we used that piece and adapted it."  
The celtic flourishes are provided by uillean pipes, which Kate has also used 
on her previous albums _The_Dreaming_(1982) and _Hounds_of_Love_(1985).
     The text for "The Sensual World" was inspired by a completely different 
source: the Molly Bloom speech at the end of James Joyce's _Ulysses_.  The 
lyrics were at first supposed to have been derived directly from the original; 
when Bush petitioned the Joyce estate, they denied permission.  But this road-
block, she explains, helped more than hindered the composition.  "What was 
interesting was the fact that through their lack of cooperation, that they 
wouldn't let me use the lyric, the original piece, the song actually became 
something else.  So I think in many ways them not helping us out turned the 
song into what it is.  The song grew and changed into something more inter-
esting.  Certainly not lyrically, but as a piece of music."
     The album, _The_Sensual_World_, is the first time Bush has worked with 
other female vocalists.  Listeners who are surprised by her adaptation of 
Bulgarian harmonies into her own songs really shouldn't be.  On _Hounds_of_
_Love_, the song "The Morning Fog" incorporates a piece of Russian choral music
that was featured in the plague scene of Werner Herzog's film _Nosferatu_.  As 
with "The Morning Fog," Bush is able to adapt and use ethnic music without 
making the result sound like a pastiche.  "Rocket's Tail," on the new album, 
unites the acclaimed Trio Bulgarka with Bush and audaciously sends them off 
with a searing David Gilmour guitar solo.
     "I think the hardest thing about working with the Trio Bulgarka was just 
having enough courage to go ahead and do it," says Bush, with charactestically 
self-effacing bashfulness.  "Once I actually did that and I met them I and 
worked together, it was heaven.  It was so easy, we had fantastic communi-
cation.  You know what the language problem is like.  But in terms of music it 
was no problem.  We just communicated emotionally and just kind of cuddled each
other and sang to each other.  It was just the most incredible experience to 
meet them as people as well as musicians, and to work with women like that - on
a creative level.  The whole thing was very exciting.
     "Also what was extraordinary was the arranger that we worked with, Dimitri
Penev.  Without him I don't know if it would have been possible.  Although I 
communicated directly with the girls, he was really the one who pulled all the 
arrangements together.  He was just fabulous, so enthusiastic!  I'd say to him,
`I want something like this...,' and he'd think and go work on it, write some-
thing out, and get the girls to rehearse and come back in ten minutes.  He'd 
come back and ask, `Do you like this?,' and he'd get the girls to sing some-
thing and I'd say, `Yes that's absolutely brilliant,' or `we've got to work on 
this bit here.'  Again, the communication with him was extraordinary.  He 
didn't speak English either.  There was just a tremendous musical chemistry.  
I'd love to work with them again."

     While growing up, Bush was exposed to both traditional and non-western 
musics through the influence of her brothers.  (And her career is still a 
family affair - brother Paddy Bush has contributed musically to all her 
releases, while John Carder Bush, her other brother, has photographed all of 
her LP covers since _The_Dreaming_.)  This rich background shows up on each of 
her albums, which features didjeridus, bazoukis, balalaikas, celtic harps, 
penny whistles, and tupans.  "That's definitely the influence of my brother, 
Paddy, who has always collected ethnic music, made musical instruments, and 
just had a tremendous enthusiasm for tradional music from around the world.
     "With my mother being Irish, Irish music has a real hold on me.  Since 
I was very little, there was always that type of music being played, so it had 
a big influence on me.  When I was tiny both my brothers used to be playing it 
all the time at home.  When I go to Ireland I feel the blood surge through my 
veins!  We go there quite alot and work with musicians there, so I think the 
Irish connection is probably the strongest influence.  But the other colors 
come very much from the instruments my brother has, or something heard that 
was played to me."
     1982's _The_Dreaming_, Bush's first self-produced album, was also the one 
in which she began working more rhythm into her songwriting.  Since that time, 
rhythms have become increasingly important to the overall sound of her work.  
"_The_Dreaming_ was really my first move into production by myself.  So it was 
the first time I could try things that I didn't feel brave enough to do 
before.  There was a lot of weight on the drummers, and they were fabulous 
because it was very difficult for them.  I was trying to get them to do things 
they had never done before.  They were wonderful.
     "By the time we were getting on to _Hounds_of_Love_, being in our own 
studio, and working with Del (Palmer, her recording engineer), I think the 
rhythms took on a more solid feeling.  There was a tremendous amount of 
experimenting going on in _The_Dreaming_, and it was great.  It was more 
controllable doing the rhythms from, say, a Fairlight or a Linn drum machine 
and then getting a drummmer in.  That way, what we found was that we started 
getting an interaction built where the drum machine wuld have a nice strong 
mechanical feel which works for tracks a lot.  Then you add a very human feel 
to the same song by putting a drummer in there with it.  That's the technique 
we've carried on with, and obviously the more we work together the more we're 
developing that process."
     As a producer and songwriter, Bush ofter uses the recording studio as a 
necessary component to her creative process.  Because of the inevetably long 
periods of time she was forced to spend in a recording studio, she decided, 
with _Hounds_of_Love_, to start working out of her own studio at home.  "I 
don't think I could work in commercial studios anymore.  The reason we got our 
studio together is because it was getting so prohibitive to try and spend the 
time I wanted to spend in writing.  In a commercial studio we were paying God 
knows how much.  So for _Hounds_of_Love_ we had our own studio.  And I think 
it's actually been the best move I've ever made creatively.  It gave me so 
much freedom.  Suddenly I was a relaxed person, working and writing in a 
studio, and this was completely new to me.  I was able to take half a day off 
if things were absolutely awful.
     "Quite often, in a commercial studio, you feel the pressure to keep work-
ing, and sometimes you don't get any work done at all.  For lots of reasons it 
became a more intimate process.  By having my own studio, I didn't have people 
popping in at all times.  The studio was always set up.  And particularly 
important was the fact that I was working with Del, whom I know so well, on a 
more extensive basis.  By the time we were working on this album he actually 
recorded everything.  He was THE recording engineer.  So I was in a position 
where I could write material in the studio with Del.  I couldn't really do 
that with anyone else.  It's a very private thing.  I couldn't really write in 
front of other people.



This is the end of part 1 of 2.