The Sensual World

[scasterg@waltham.columbus.oh.us (Stuart Castergine)]

I finally got _The_Sensual_World_! I like the album (of course),
but I do understand now what people have said about the quality
of the engineering/mix. Having listened to it about a dozen times
now, I think I'm ready to say, "It wasn't Del's fault." You see,
I think the actual recording of the tracks was fine. The problem,
to my ears is the mixing balance of the background tracks -- they
sometimes overwhelm Kate's voice and are generally too obtrusive.
Checking the credits, I notice that it wasn't Del who did the
mixing on most of the album, it was Kevin Killen. Del only mixed
one song, _Walk Straight Down the Middle_.

It is too soon for me to choose favorites other than the title track.
The album doesn't grab me quite as immediately as some of hers
have. Then again, it took me a long while to decide _The Dreaming_
was the most fantastic album I'd ever heard. I do have this intuition,
not based on any analysis, that one of the things that bothers
me is that the album is in some strange way less mystical, less
spiritual than her other work. Anybody know what I'm talking about
better than I do?

And, I must admit, my enjoyment of the album has been lessened
by talk that it shows some deterioration of her voice. I keep
listening to tracks over and over thinking "Is she straining there?"
"Is that tremolo intentional or due to a lack of control?" "Is
the breathy delivery a coverup for raspiness?" I will feel greatly
relieved if her next album (WHEN WILL IT BE?!) calms some of my
fears and shows her voice to be intact and still the most amazing
thing since God created sound. I'm hoping that this album simply
wasn't a very good showcase for her voice, that she was using
a certain style here that I'm just not meshing with yet, just
as it took some people a while to get used to what she was doing
on _The Dreaming_ compared with the high, ethereal vocals of her
early albums.

I think the next album can't help but be helped by just "turning
down the volume on all that electronic background crap and letting
me hear KATE!"
---
scasterg@waltham.columbus.oh.us -- Stuart M. Castergine        ---
                I  still dream of Orgonon.                      |/
                                                                |\