Idle Speculation and Other Nonsense

[nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)]

Space zombies broke into my office and forced me to type:

>>I believe that the increasing involvement of Del Palmer in Kate's work
>>did not have a positive affect on _The Sensual World_.  Perhaps even the
>>contrary.

Several Love Hounds have asked me to clarify myself and since I don't
see anyone nearby with ropes or kindling I guess now is a good time.

Let's take it a sentence at a time.  First I said, "I believe that the 
increasing involvement of Del Palmer in Kate's work did not have a 
positive affect on _The Sensual World_."  I started out with that to
sort of ease into the subject because I don't think that there can
really be any question about it.  _The Sensual World_ really isn't
superior to her other most recent efforts in any way.  Not musically 
as a work of art and certainly not technically as a recording.
Therefore, if we can a assume that Kate is at least as capable as
ever we must conclude that Del's increased participation did not have
a positive effect, i.e. it did not make TSW a better record.

Then I ventured a bit further.  "Perhaps even the contrary," I wrote.
I see some of you gathering up combustables and I don't think that 
you're upset about my poor sentence structure.  

After having lived with TSW for some time and coming to love it 
dearly I must still conclude that it is not as great a work as
either _The Dreaming_ or _Hounds of Love_.  Unfortunately someone
neglected to invite me to the recording sessions so all I can do 
speculate on the reasons.  If you're not the sort who cares to engage
in idle speculation perhaps you should skip a bit.

First there's the sound.  The longer I live with TSW the more the
assorted audio flotsam and jetsam that were allowed to creep into the
album annoy me.  There has been enough talk here about the noise level 
on TSW that I'd say that many, and perhaps most, Love Hounds agree 
that the album is a big disappointment in this respect.  Interestingly 
enough High Fidelity rated TSW's recording as 'excellent' which is 
probably just shy of their best rating.  Another magazine had scathing 
criticism for the record's sound quality. (Could someone mail this to 
me or repost it?  Yes, I'm aware that this review had more than its 
share of inaccuracies but I think it's basic premise was correct and 
I'd like to read it again now that I'm past the denial stage.)  

So if TSW is a less than ideal recording who gets the blame?  
Ultimately Kate does because she's responsible for the finished
product but more specifically Del is credited with "Recording" the
bulk of the album.  Note that the credit is for "recording" not
"engineering" and to me that just about sums it up.

Andy Marvick counters that Nigel Kennedy had high praise for Del's 
engineering ability.  It's does seem that Del is capable of capturing
some superb sounds on tape and Kennedy's parts on TSW are a good
example of this.  If you take only the recording of Kennedy's part of
the album I can see why Kennedy would have praised Del. Unfortunately
the sound quality of the rest of the album simply doesn't measure up.
Kennedy's praise is based on one of the high points of a rather
spotty recording.

Then there's the music itself.  Perhaps I'm just not in touch with
Kate's "most female album" but something is missing.  Most of it is
intangible.  The only thing that I'm sure of is the percussion -- it
simply doesn't compare to that of _The Dreaming_ or _Hounds of Love_.
_Heads We're Dancing_ almost makes it and _Rocket's Tale_ tries with
shear energy but everything else falls well short.  Why?  Perhaps this
excerpt from Kate Bush Club newsletter about the making of _The Sensual
World_ provides a clue...

|  "I'm using the Fairlight again, and a DX-7; but a lot of the songs
|have been written on piano initially, and it does definitely give
|the songs a different flavour from those written on Fairlight. A
|lot of rhythms are arranged by Del, and we tend to keep bits and
|replace a lot with real drums, but still keeping his "feel". 

Keeping _his_ feel?  Certainly Del has been programming the drum
machines for a long time but in the past it seemed that great pains
were taken to capture _her_ feel.  Now we hear talk of Del arranging
the rhythms with an effort being made to keep his feel.  

Gregory Bossert wonders whether I'm saying that TSW is a KT album
"watered down by Del and others."  Yes and no.  Kate said this
about the making of _Hounds of Love_...

|   We then got into a pattern of where I would work with just Del
|for two or three days a week, and Haydn would work the rest of
|the week compiling and bouncing the ideas we'd worked on in the
|earlier part of the week. This worked very well, as I was uninhibited
|at trying out the ideas with Del, and Haydn could come in
|objectively to them. Quite often I was very nicely surprised when
|things I felt might be a little too obvious, perhaps, were nicely
|disguised. It is impossible to remain totally objective, especially
|when the ideas need to be subtle--you mustn't make them too subtle
|or no one will hear them!

It strikes me that TSW is very much the sort of album that might come
about from not having someone to provide feedback who could view the 
work more objectively.  Having someone there in this capacity doesn't 
"water down" Kate's work, it provides an point of reference where
Kate can see how a track is coming together through the eyes of someone 
who hasn't been listening to the same piece of tape for a week. The lack 
of this sort of objective feedback may have made TSW an album where 
some of the ideas have become entirely too subtle. 

Unfortunately, Del can no longer provide that objective feedback himself
because he is now more of a collaborator in the process than an assistant.

|"Del and I argue a great deal - over songs. But we consider it healthy. 
|Who wins? Normally, I do. I'm not the shy, retiring, fragile butterfly 
|creature you sometimes read about. I'm tough as nails."

_Normally_ Kate wins.  How often is normally?  How many decisions on
this album didn't go her way?  More importantly how many of those
decisions didn't go her way as much because of her relationship 
with Del as because of her respect of his judgement?  Certainly
there's plenty of reason to believe that she is indeed "tough as
nails" when it comes to important issues in her music but how
effectively can she maintain that position when her opposition is a
loved one who is in all probability more important to her than her
music?

As I said, it's all speculation and possibly a waste of breath but I
think it's interesting to attempt to puzzle out the forces that are
shaping Kate's work.  Maybe Del pushed for an album full of songs
like _Reaching Out_ or maybe he hated that track, maybe the uninspired
percussion was his doing or maybe Kate wanted it that way.  In either
case Del is clearly taking a greater role in Kate's music - something
worth considering as we observe the changes in her work.

----

Andy was surprised at my remark that MTV Unplugged would have provided
an excellent venue for a live Kate performance.  I'm not sure why that
would be such a surprise.  Unplugged has seen some excellent
performances from a wide variety of acts.  I suggested it as a likely
venue because it would have given Kate the opportunity to perform
without feeling any need to reproduce her complex album tracks. A few
simple tracks performed on piano with minimal accompaniment would provided 
enough material for the show.  

----

Of course, we all know that _Hammer_Horror_ is about an actor whose
friend dies as he is preparing for a role that he has wanted all his
life and this actor's feelings of guilt at taking over the role. 

Right?  Well how's this for more idle speculation -- what if the actor
actually killed his friend to take the role from him?  It certainly
does make for some stunning imagery and lends a whole new feeling to
the song.  "You stood in the bell tower/But now you're gone"  Pushed
perhaps?   Yes, yes Kate has given a very detailed description of
the idea behind _Hammer Horror_ and that's not in there.  I'm not
proposing that this idea is "right", just interesting.

----

Congratulations to Chris and Vickie on their successful transplant to
the "midwest".  I'm glad to hear that you're getting settled so
quickly.

It was great to hear about your visit with Victoria Williams.  So few
of us ever get to meet, let alone befriend, any of the people that we
so deeply admire.  I would say that you're terribly lucky but in fact
it's pretty clear that you've earned it with your tireless devotion to
promoting good music.  

----

Some of our friends from accross the pond wondered about the possibility
of getting a copy of C'n'V's tapes.  As Vickie mentioned the tapes
won't do you much good unless you have NTSC to PAL conversion
capability.  Now if you do have that capability we have to wonder if
you also have PAL to NTSC conversion capability...and if you do I have
wonder if perhaps a trade for the Comic Strip episodes featuring Kate
or her music could be arranged...  

----

I see that there were a few new posters out there.  Welcome to you
all.  With the possible exception of the roasting of an occaisional
heretic we have a pretty good time here in Love-Hounds (aka
rec.music.gaffa).  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to change into my
nomex long-johns.

----

"Don't drive too slowly."                 Richard Caldwell
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