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Kate Bush: Aerial
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| Artist: |
Kate Bush |
| Title: |
Aerial |
| Released: |
2005.11.07 |
| Label: |
EMI Records |
| Time: |
38:04 / 42:04 |
| Producer(s): |
Kate Bush |
| Appears with: |
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| Category: |
Pop/Rock |
| Rating: |
******.... (6/10) |
| Media type: |
CD Double |
| Purchase
date: |
2005.11.03 |
| Price in €: |
18,10 |
| Web address: |
www.katebush.com |
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CD 1: Sea of Honey
[1] King of the Mountain (K.Bush) - 4:53
[2] Pi (K.Bush) - 6:09
[3] Bertie (K.Bush) - 4:18
[4] Mrs. Bartolozzi (K.Bush) - 5:58
[5] How to Be Invisible (K.Bush) - 5:32
[6] Joanni (K.Bush) - 4:56
[7] A Coral Room (K.Bush) - 6:12
CD 2: Sky of Honey
[1] Prelude (K.Bush) - 1:26
[2] Prologue (K.Bush) - 5:42
[3] An Architect's Dream (K.Bush) - 4:50
[4] The Painter's Link (K.Bush) - 1:35
[5] Sunset (K.Bush) - 5:58
[6] Aerial Tal (K.Bush) - 1:01
[7] Somewhere in Between (K.Bush) - 5:00
[8] Nocturn (K.Bush) - 8:34
[9] Aerial (K.Bush) - 7:52
| A
r t i s t s , P e r s o n n e l |
|
Kate Bush - piano, keyboards, vocals
Eligio Quinteiro - renaissance guitar
Dan McIntosh - acoustic & electric guitar
Richard Campbell - violine
Susanna Pell - violine
Chris Hall - accordion
Gary Brooker - Hammond B3 organ,
background vocals
Del Palmer - bass
guitar
Eberhard Weber - bass
guitar
John Giblin - bass
guitar
Peter Erskine - drums
Stuart Elliott - drums
Steve Sanger - drums
Bosco
D'Oliveira - percussion
Robin Jeffrey - percussion
Lol Cremebackground vocals
Paddy Bush - background vocals
Rolf Harris - didgeridoo
Michael Wood - male voice on "A Coral Room"
London Metropolitan Orchestra
Michael Kamen - orchestral arrangements, conuctor
Bill Dunne - "Bertie" string arrangements
Del Palmer - recording & mixing engineer
James Guthrie - mastering
Simon Rhodes - orchestral engineer
Chris Bolster - orchestral assistant engineer
Josephie Bartolini - italian translation
John Carder-Bush - photography
Randy Olson - photography
| C
o m m e n t s , N o t e s |
|
2005 CD Columbia 97772
2005 CD Toshiba EMI 66474
2005 CD Toshiba EMI 66474
Short Reviews:
Rolling Stone (No. 987, p.130) - 4 out of 5 stars - "...Given Bush's protracted absence, the subtlety of her eighth studio offering seems particularly ballsy...."
Mojo (p.96) - 5 stars out of 5
- "Kate Bush is the greatest living British artist in song and this is
her masterpiece....It's all exquisitely sung, played and judged....And
so few artists award themselves the freedom to roam around their
imagination the way Kate Bush does."
Mojo (p.58) - Ranked #3 in Mojo's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2005" - "[D]aring conceits, emotional nudism and neo-classical sonics culminated in a mood-altering crypto-Balearic trance-athon."
Fans who have waited 12 years for the return of Kate Bush have reason
to celebrate the arrival of this two-CD concept album. On disc one, the
angelic songstress jumps from multilayered pop symphonies like "King of
the Mountain," an enthralling meditation on the pathos of celebrity, to
haunting voice-and-piano soliloquies like "A Coral Room." On disc two,
she traces the arc of a day through bird song, morphing her voice and
lush instrumentations with field recordings of winged creatures. Such
is the scope of Bush's artistry that she finds poetry in the numerical
sequence for pi ("(pi)"), sensuality in the spin cycle of a washing
machine ("Mrs. Bartolozzi") and beauty in the wave forms used to
represent audio in software programs (the cover art). Despite her
prolonged absence, Bush sounds as vital as ever.
Paul Verna - Billboard Magazine
Maturity hasn't dulled Kate Bush's propensity for musical loopiness.
Twelve years after her last album, she is still besotted by all the
wonders of this good green earth. On the sprawling but focused Aerial,
she is a sprite flitting across verdant, languorous soundscapes, cooing
along with the birdsong and extolling the virtues of her son, the
beauty of numbers — even doing the wash — all the while
mesmerizing with her controlled whimsy and intricate arrangements that
never overwhelm her voice. Considering the length of her hiatus, this
is a remarkable surprise. Grade: A
Reviewed by Marc Weingarten
Copyright © 2005 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc.
These days, record companies try to make every new album seem like a
matter of unparalleled cultural import. The most inconsequential
artists require confidentiality agreements to be faxed to journalists,
the lowliest release must be delivered by hand. So it's hard not to be
impressed by an album that carries a genuine sense of occasion. That's
not to say EMI - which earlier this year transformed the ostensibly
simple process of handing critics the Coldplay album into something
resembling a particularly Byzantine episode of Spooks - haven't really
pushed the boat out for Kate Bush's return after a 12-year absence.
They employed a security man specifically for the purpose of staring at
you while you listened to her new album. But even without his
disconcerting presence, Aerial would seem like an event.
In the gap since 1993's so-so The Red Shoes, the Kate Bush myth that
began fomenting when she first appeared on Top of the Pops, waving her
arms and shrilly announcing that Cath-ee had come home-uh, grew to
quite staggering proportions. She was variously reported to have gone
bonkers, become a recluse and offered her record company some home-made
biscuits instead of a new album. In reality, she seems to have been
doing nothing more peculiar than bringing up a son, moving house and
watching while people made up nutty stories about her.
Aerial contains a song called How to Be Invisible. It features a spell
for a chorus, precisely what you would expect from the batty Kate Bush
of popular myth. The spell, however, gently mocks her more obsessive
fans while espousing a life of domestic contentment: "Hem of anorak,
stem of wallflower, hair of doormat."
Domestic contentment runs through Aerial's 90-minute duration. Recent
Bush albums have been filled with songs in which the extraordinary
happened: people snogged Hitler, or were arrested for building machines
that controlled the weather. Aerial, however, is packed with songs that
make commonplace events sound extraordinary. It calls upon Renaissance
musicians to serenade her son. Viols are bowed, arcane stringed
instruments plucked, Bush sings beatifically of smiles and kisses and
"luvv-er-ly Bertie". You can't help feeling that this song is going to
cause a lot of door slamming and shouts of
"oh-God-mum-you're-so-embarrassing" when Bertie reaches the less
luvv-er-ly age of 15, but it's still delightful.
The second CD is devoted to a concept piece called A Sky of Honey in
which virtually nothing happens, albeit very beautifully, with
delicious string arrangements, hymnal piano chords, joyous choruses and
bursts of flamenco guitar: the sun comes up, birds sing, Bush watches a
pavement artist at work, it rains, Bush has a moonlight swim and
watches the sun come up again. The pavement artist is played by Rolf
Harris. This casting demonstrates Bush's admirable disregard for
accepted notions of cool, but it's tough on anyone who grew up watching
him daubing away on Rolf's Cartoon Club. "A little bit lighter there,
maybe with some accents," he mutters. You keep expecting him to ask if
you can guess what it is yet.
Domestic contentment even gets into the staple Bush topic of sex. Ever
since her debut, The Kick Inside, with its lyrics about incest and
"sticky love", Bush has given good filth: striking, often disturbing
songs that, excitingly, suggest a wildly inventive approach to having
it off. Here, on the lovely and moving piano ballad Mrs Bartolozzi, she
turns watching a washing machine into a thing of quivering erotic
wonder. "My blouse wrapping around your trousers," she sings. "Oh, and
the waves are going out/ my skirt floating up around my waist." Laundry
day in the Bush household must be an absolute hoot.
Aerial sounds like an album made in isolation. On the down side, that
means some of it seems dated. You can't help feeling she might have
thought twice about the lumpy funk of Joanni and the preponderance of
fretless bass if she got out a bit more. But, on the plus side, it also
means Aerial is literally incomparable. You catch a faint whiff of Pink
Floyd and her old mentor Dave Gilmour on the title track, but otherwise
it sounds like nothing other than Bush's own back catalogue. It is
filled with things only Kate Bush would do. Some of them you rather
wish she wouldn't, including imitating bird calls and doing funny
voices: King of the Mountain features a passable impersonation of its
subject, Elvis, which is at least less disastrous than the
strewth-cobber Aussie accent she adopted on 1982's The Dreaming. But
then, daring to walk the line between the sublime and the demented is
the point of Kate Bush's entire oeuvre. On Aerial she achieves far, far
more of the former than the latter. When she does, there is nothing you
can do but willingly succumb.
Alexis Petridis - The Guardian
Friday November 4, 2005
In case you weren't yet born when Kate Bush released her last album
twelve years ago, here's the lowdown: This British art-rock siren
created the template for ethereal female rockers such as Tori Amos and
Sarah McLachlan, doing almost everything they do - years earlier and
with more flair - everything, that is, except sell a lot of records in
America. Given Bush's protracted absence, the subtlety of her eighth
studio offering seems particularly ballsy. Designed as an old-fashioned
double album, Aerial offers the singer's uncharacteristically
restrained vocals over acoustic chamber music, low-key electronics and
the late Michael Kamen's final orchestrations. Featuring songs about
Elvis, mathematics, her son and a washing machine, the first disc
rarely rises above a musical whisper. The second, a conceptual work
that follows nature's course from afternoon to sunrise, slowly builds
via fantastically gorgeous strings, a brief smattering of Spanish
guitar, one slinky protracted groove built for "Nocturne," and a duet
of laughter and birdcalls on the throbbing title track. Akin to recent
Antony and the Johnsons and latter-day Talk Talk, Aerial doesn't
deliver anything resembling a conventional pop tune. And this suits
Bush just fine.
BARRY WALTERS
Rolling Stone - Nov, 3 2005
Since the 1980s Kate Bush has shouldered the unhappy burden of having
to live up to her own brilliance: albums like THE DREAMING and HOUNDS
OF LOVE set a high watermark for shimmering, adventurous, off-kilter
pop. In the 12 years that transpired between the releases of 1993's THE
RED SHOES and 2005's AERIAL, expectations ran high that Bush had
something monumental in store. AERIAL does not necessarily meet those
expectations, but that is not to imply that it's a lackluster release
either. A double-disc set that encompasses a collection of songs about
domesticity (the first disc, A SEA OF HONEY) and a conceptual suite
that details the passing of a day (the second disc, A SKY OF HONEY),
AERIAL is ambitious, lovely, intensely personal, and marked by Bush's
unique approach to music-making. The fierce edginess of THE
DREAMING-era Bush is replaced by deep meditations on family life
("Bertie"), familiar chores ("Mrs. Bartolozzi"), and the cycles of time
("Sunset"). Bush's gentle singer/songwriter mode is combined with jazz,
rock, classical, electronica, and other elements for a musical
experience that sustains her reputation as one our most adventurous and
distinctive artists.
CDUniverse.com
Letting more than a decade elapse between albums isn't usually advised,
but on this 12-years-in-the-making set, Kate Bush proves herself as
impervious as ever to the music world's changing sonic fashions and
short attention spans. The double-disc Aerial is divided into two
conceptually separate components, melding the ethereal and the
earth-mother aspects of Bush's persona most engagingly, flitting around
the edges of Red Shoes-styled rock, folk, and Celtic sounds without
settling comfortably into any one niche. The first disc, subtitled "A
Sea of Honey," is dominated by more accessible material, both
melodically and topically - from the piano-led "Mrs. Bartolozzi," an
intricately woven tale that makes doing laundry seem like an exercise
in erotica, to the pulsing "How to Be Invisible," which bluntly
addresses the distaste for the spotlight that contributed to Bush's
extended career hiatus. Such openness is par for the course here,
whether Bush is moving toward the light, as on the medieval-sounding
"Bertie," written for her young son, or dealing with the darkness, as
on "A Coral Room," which revolves around the death of her mother. Disc
2, subtitled "A Sky of Honey," is more abstract but also decidedly more
focused, given that it's intended to capture the passage of a day in
the English countryside. Introduced by the sound of songbirds - a
device that's both quaint and fitting, given the bucolic music that
follows - the disc is unflaggingly upbeat lyrically, with melodies
marked by a gentle rolling that suggests the hilly terrain of rural
Britain. "Sunset," for instance, conveys an impression of waning
daylight with a rhythm that stretches languidly, evoking memories of
The Dreaming. The disc-closing title track, on the other hand, is the
set's most buoyant, a bright-eyed greeting to a new day, which Bush
approaches with guileless excitement. That's an ideal way to approach
Aerial in general - with the knowledge that something new and
beautiful lurks beyond the next turn.
David Sprague - Barnes & Noble
Fierce Kate Bush fans who are expecting revelation in Aerial, her first
new work since The Red Shoes in 1993, will no doubt scour lyrics,
instrumental trills, and interludes until they find them. For everyone
else, those who purchased much of Bush's earlier catalog because of its
depth, quality, and vision, Aerial will sound exactly like what it is,
a new Kate Bush record: full of her obsessions, lushly romantic paeans
to things mundane and cosmic, and her ability to add dimension and
transfer emotion though song. The set is spread over two discs. The
first, A Sea of Honey, is a collection of songs, arranged for
everything from full-on rock band to solo piano. The second, A Sky of
Honey, is a conceptual suite. It was produced by Bush with engineering
and mixing by longtime collaborator Del Palmer.
A Sea of Honey is a deeply interior look at domesticity, with the
exception of its opening track, "King of the Mountain," the first
single and video. Bush does an acceptable impersonation of Elvis
Presley in which she examines his past life on earth and present
incarnation as spectral enigma. Juxtaposing the Elvis myth, Wagnerian
mystery, and the image of Rosebud, the sled from Orson Welles' Citizen
Kane, Bush's synthesizer, sequencer, and voice weigh in ethereally from
the margins before a full-on rock band playing edgy and funky reggae
enters on the second verse. Wind whispers and then howls across the
cut's backdrop as she searches for the rainbow body of the disappeared
one through his clothes and the tabloid tales of his apocryphal
sightings, looking for a certain resurrection of his physical body. The
rest of the disc focuses on more interior and domestic matters, but
it's no less startling. A tune called "Pi" looks at a mathematician's
poetic and romantic love of numbers. "Bertie" is a hymn to her son
orchestrated by piano, Renaissance guitar, percussion, and viols.
But disc one's strangest and most lovely moment is in "Mrs.
Bartolozzi," scored for piano and voice. It revives Bush's obsessive
eroticism through an ordinary woman's ecstatic experience of cleaning
after a rainstorm, and placing the clothing of her beloved and her own
into the washing machine and observing in rapt sexual attention. She
sings "My blouse wrapping itself around your trousers/Oh the waves are
going out/My skirt floating up around your waist...Washing
machine/Washing machine." Then there's "How to Be Invisible," and the
mysticism of domestic life as the interior reaches out into the
universe and touches its magic: "Hem of anorak/Stem of a wall
flower/Hair of doormat?/Is that autumn leaf falling?/Or is that you
walking home?/Is that a storm in the swimming pool?"
A Sky of Honey is 42 minutes in length. It's lushly romantic as it
meditates on the passing of 24 hours. Its prelude is a short deeply
atmospheric piece with the sounds of birds singing, and her son (who is
"the Sun" according to the credits) intones, "Mummy...Daddy/The day is
full of birds/Sounds like they're saying words." And "Prologue" begins
with her piano, a chanted viol, and Bush crooning to romantic love, the
joy of marriage and nature communing, and the deep romance of everyday
life. There's drama, stillness, joy, and quiet as its goes on, but it's
all held within, as in "An Architect's Dream," where the protagonist
encounters a working street painter going about his work in changing
light: "The flick of a wrist/Twisting down to the hips/So the lovers
begin with a kiss...." Loops, Eberhard Weber's fretless bass, drifting
keyboards, and a relaxed delivery create an erotic tension, in beauty
and in casual voyeurism.
"Sunset" has Bush approaching jazz, but it doesn't swing so much as it
engages the form. Her voice digging into her piano alternates between
lower-register enunciation and a near falsetto in the choruses. There
is a sense of utter fascination with the world as it moves toward
darkness, and the singer is enthralled as the sun climbs into bed,
before it streams into "Sunset," a gorgeous flamenco guitar and
percussion-driven call-and-response choral piece - it's literally
enthralling. It is followed by a piece of evening called "Somewhere
Between," in which lovers take in the beginning of night. As "Nocturne"
commences, shadows, stars, the beach, and the ocean accompany two
lovers who dive down deep into one another and the surf. Rhythms assert
themselves as the divers go deeper and the band kicks up: funky
electric guitars pulse along with the layers of keyboards, journeying
until just before sunup. But it is on the title track that Bush gives
listeners her greatest surprise. Dawn is breaking and she greets the
day with a vengeance. Manic, crunchy guitars play power chords as
sequencers and synths make the dynamics shift and swirl. In her higher
register, Bush shouts, croons, and trills against and above the band's
force.
Nothing much happens on Aerial except the passing of a day, as noted by
the one who engages it in the process of being witnessed, yet it
reveals much about the interior and natural worlds and expresses
spiritual gratitude for everyday life. Musically, this is what
listeners have come to expect from Bush at her best - a finely
constructed set of songs that engage without regard for anything else
happening in the world of pop music. There's no pushing of the envelope
because there doesn't need to be. Aerial is rooted in Kate Bush's
oeuvre, with grace, flair, elegance, and an obsessive, stubborn
attention to detail. What gets created for the listener is an ordinary
world, full of magic; it lies inside one's dwelling in overlooked and
inhabited spaces, and outside, from the backyard and out through the
gate into wonder.
Thom Jurek - All Music Guide
In einer Welt austauschbarer Popstars, glatt polierter Bands und der
Versessenheit auf Ruhm um jeden Preis gibt es nur wenige Künstler, bei
denen es sich um richtige Originale handelt; noch weniger Künstler
können den Anspruch erheben, so ziemlich jeden Musiker beeinflusst zu
haben - jedoch niemand anders besitzt den Mythos und die Aura der
größten weiblichen Ikone und Innovatorin der Popmusik, die das
Vereinigte Königreich von Großbritannien hervorgebracht hat, als Kate
Bush. Jetzt, nach zwölf unendlich scheinenden Jahren, ist Kate Bushs
sehnlich erwartete Rückkehr ins Rampenlicht in greifbare Nähe gerückt.
"Aerial", das am 4. November erscheinende Doppelalbum, ist bereits von
all jenen, die es gehört haben, als ihr großartigstes und
außergewöhnlichstes Werk bewundert worden; ein Album von einer solchen
Tiefe und Reichweite, von solcher Emotion und solchem Zauber, dass es
ein Leichtes ist, es als eines der wichtigsten Alben des Jahres 2005 zu
bezeichnen - und es ist sicherlich das bewegendste. Mit "Aerial" hat
Kate Bush sich wieder eingefunden in die zeitgenössische Musik, und ist
zugleich so zeitlos geblieben wie eh und je - beste Gelegenheit
jedenfalls für eine neue Generation von Musikliebhabern in aller Welt,
eine der faszinierendsten Künstlerinnen unserer Zeit zu entdecken.
CD description from Amazon.de
It's often said that a musician's debut represents the culmination of a
lifetime's worth of experiences, but their sophomore effort is usually
derived from just the intervening year. By waiting 12 years between The
Red Shoes and her new double CD, Aerial, Kate Bush has tried to regain
that lifetime. It's a remarkably coherent recording, reflecting the
unique world of sound and spirit Bush has inhabited since her debut.
The first disc, subtitled A Sea of Honey, is a suite of personal
reveries. It ranges from "King of the Mountain," a contemplation of
unbridled celebrity and its isolation that references Elvis and Citizen
Kane, to the piano-and-voice study "Mrs. Bartolozzi," an ode to
household chores whose chorus is "Sloshy sloshy sloshy sloshy, get that
dirty shirty clean." With its Depeche Mode-influenced synth pads,
electro pulses, and lyric cadences, "King of the Mountain" is vintage
Bush pop. But many of the songs attain more epic proportions, like the
dynamic "Joanni," a hymn to Joan of Arc. It's the second disc-a suite
called A Sky of Honey-on which Bush really comes into her own. Using
metaphors of the turning of the day and the flight of birds, she
orchestrates a meditation on the cycles of life. Musically expansive,
she weaves her compositions out of birdsong, subtle orchestrations, and
jazz trios, showing herself at her experimental best. Embracing her
relatively new motherhood, as well as the death of her mother, Aerial
is a deeply personal album, and a welcome return from one of pop
music's true icons and vocal wonders.
John Diliberto -
Amazon.com
Nach zwölf Jahren Plattenpause traut sich Kate Bush wieder - und
wie! Mit Aerial, einem Doppelalbum und der siebenten Studio-LP ihrer
fast 30-jährigen Karriere, zeigt die eigensinnige
Engländerin, warum sie als die „erste Elfe der
Popmusik“ ganze Legionen nachfolgender Sängerinnen bis auf
den heutigen Tag nachhaltig beeinflusst hat. Als eine der ersten setzte
sie fast nur auf das exzessive Experiment mit ihrer Stimme,
überflügelte rockgeprägte Gesanghöhen und
durchbrach konventionelle Songarrangements. Diese Freiheit gönnt
sie sich nun gleich doppelt. Der Albumtitel Aerial ist programmatisch -
schon immer stand ihr Gesang für das Luftige, Fliegende,
Ätherische. Genau das bestimmt sowohl die erste CD mit sieben,
eher konventionell komponierten Songs, als auch die zweite, die wieder
einmal ein Songzyklus, oder besser gesagt, eine Art Konzeptalbum im
besten Sinne des altmodischen Begriffs ist. Beide heben sich
erstaunlich frisch von marktstrategischer Trendware ab, sind allenfalls
im positiven Sinne „altmodisch“, weil authentisch und
abenteuerlustig. Das gilt übrigens auch für alle Texte. Hier
zeigt sich Kate Bush, der man musikalisch gesehen vor allem
Romantisches unterschieben würde, erstaunlich findig. Der
kraftvolle Rocker „King Of The Mountain“, zurecht die erste
Single, handelt zwar von Elvis Presley, dem Ruhm und wie es da ganz
oben aussieht, aber danach macht sie einen intellektuellen Exkurs durch
Themen, die allenfalls David Byrne in eingängige Songs kleiden
kann. Ob nun der traumhafte Trance über einen Zahlenfetischisten,
der schon irreal-groteske Haushaltssong am Mollpiano „Mrs.
Bartolozzi“ mit dem endlos-inbrünstigen Refrain über
die „Waschmaschine“, ihre Gedanken über das
Unsichtbarwerden zu tockernden Basslinien auf „How To Be
Invisible“ oder ganz abgehoben, versponnen „Joanni“,
eine literarische Hommage an Jean D‘Arc - Kate Bush enthuscht der
Pop- und Rockrealität auf ihre vielschichtige Weise. Für
ihren Sohn „Bertie“ hat sie folglich auch ein
mittelalterliches Menuett mit Minnegesang komponiert, und Katastrophen
wie die Zerstörung der Twin Towers in New York verschwinden bei
ihr ganz sakral im „A Coral Room“.
Nach CD 1, genannt „A Sea Of Honey“, gönnt sich Kate
Bush also mit CD 1 „A Sky Of Honey“ einen musikalischen
Spaziergang durch einen Tag, auf dem sie alle wunderlichen bis
wunderbaren Klangbilder zusammenfasst, die man seit Konzeptalben der
Pink Floyd, Genesis und Peter Gabriel kennt. Natürlich auch mit
den modernsten Mitteln der Elektronik. Hat man sich auf dieses Opus
eingelassen, taucht man in ihre bildhaften Arrangements aus
Originalgeräuschen, verfremdeten Stimmen, wechselnden Stimmungen
und Stilen vom Flamenco bis zur schwebend-leichten Orientalik ein.
Leichtfüßig bis hochdramatisch, exaltiert und transzendent.
Wir haben gerne zwölf Jahre gewartet.
Ingeborg Schober - Amazon.de
Das Enigma spricht, 84 Minuten lang, nach 12 Jahren Pause. Kate Bush,
inzwischen 47 und die größte britische Popkünstlerin
aller Zeiten, lässt uns teilhaben an mehr als dekadenlanger
Arbeit. Und man wird eine Weile brauchen, um dieses konzeptuell
zweitgeteilte Doppelalbum zu verdauen. Denn auch eine wie sie
spürt den Druck, ihren Status bestätigen zu müssen. Sie
tut das stilistisch breit, sie tut es elektronisch, pianesk, folkig;
manchmal sogar alles davon auf einmal. Kate Bush will packen,
überzeugen, beeindrucken; sie will, dass wir Aufgaben lösen
und Hürden überwinden. Dafür verzichtet sie auf vokale
Eskapaden, steckt alle Virtuosität in den Aufbau der
Kompositionen, und kaum eine folgt einem klassischen Schema. Es sind
kleine bis große Epen voller Dramatik und Spannung, durchpulst
von Piano-Hammerschlägen, geweitet von synthetischer Sinfonik,
rhythmisiert von Beats zwischen tribal und tanzbar.
„Räumliche und akustische Musik - plus eine Menge Drums",
sagt sie. Plus einer unschönen esoterischen Grundierung, muss man
ergänzen. Denn an diesem Album haben Ornithologen die meiste
Freude. Kate Bush zwitschert mit den Vögeln, wir hören
Käuzchen, Amseln, wir werden gefüttert mit einer seltsam
gestrigen Naturmystik. Und sind wie befreit, wenn wir uns einem
ätherischen Loungepop-Song wie „Nocturn" hingeben
dürfen, der über achteinhalb Minuten einen Hypnotiseur
arbeitslos macht. Doch nicht er darf die Single sein und
(natürlich) auch nicht das in seiner folkloristischen Strenge an
Hofmusik erinnernde „Bertie" (gewidmet ihrem Sohn), sondern das
auf leisen Sohlen daherkommende „King of the Mountain".
Synthiestreicher planieren eine Ebene, in die TripDub-Drums dann
Monolithen rammen dürfen. Mit seiner linearen Steigerung, seinen
sich immer höher stapelnden Klangschichten ist der Song eine
gewagte Single. Aber das gehört zum Status der größten
britischen Künstlerin aller Zeiten nun mal dazu: Es einem nicht
leicht zu machen. Und genau das macht „Aerial" immens nachhaltig.
Für weitere 12 Jahre Pause wird es dennoch nicht reichen.
(mw) - Kulturnews
Kate Bush has been changing the world since before I was born. I am now
26 and Kate is comfortably in her 40s; logic, sense and precedence
decree that she should no longer be relevant, that her record releases,
like those of The Rolling Stones—hell, like those of U2 and
REM—should be treated with a muted fanfare by the industry and
certain sections of the press and with glum bathos by everyone else as
returns steadily diminish and distant peaks are listlessly recreated in
Xeroxed monochrome.
But this is Kate Bush.
It has been 27 years since “Wuthering Heights,” since a
19-year-old girl in leggings danced like a white witch on Top Of The
Pops. 12 years since The Red Shoes. It is 20 years since I saw her on
Wogan, performing “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),”
since Hounds Of Love. Aerial comes in two parts—A Sea Of Honey
and A Sky Of Honey. The former is 7 songs over 38 minutes, a paean to
domestic bliss, to chores and children and Citizen Kane and Joan of Arc
and Elvis. The latter is 9 songs over 42 minutes (with some editing,
and I’m talking seconds removed, the two could be combined), a
day in the life of light from dawn through afternoon and dusk to the
monochrome glaze of moonlight. A double song-cycle about bliss mundane
and ecstatic, familial and artistic.
Sonically Aerial is a Kate Bush record in the style of The Dreaming and
The Hounds Of Love: luscious, experimental, romantic (of course). The
palette may be a touch dated in this post-Timbaland, post-Fennesz age,
but it is still beautiful. There are huge expanses of piano—the
oceanic, mournful swoon of “Mrs. Bartolozzi”—and
strange, post-ambient pop grooves for dancing to alone as if immersed
in a pagan ritual (“King Of The Mountain”). There is
birdsong, and lots of it; there are guitars, dubby basslines, Latinised
rhythms, strange and unidentifiable spirals and planes of sound
summoned perhaps from synthesizers. And most of all, of course, there
is Kate’s voice, a thousand instruments unto itself, delivering
words both sublime and ridiculous.
There will be doubts, because Kate Bush’s genius and muse is a
female genius and muse and thus utterly different to what we expect
from… Mark Hollis? Michael Jackson? Stevie Wonder? Thom Yorke?
(Don’t make me laugh.) Jimi Hendrix? David Bowie? Any man, ever.
None of them could get away with enunciating words like “Slooshy
sloshy slooshy sloshy / Get that dirty shirt clean”; none of them
would even dare. Well, maybe Bowie would. We seem to think genius is a
male trait. We’re wrong. The candour and honesty with which Kate
delivers the lines “You bring me so much joy / And then you bring
me / More joy” on “Bertie,” an unashamedly
sentimental song about her love for her son, are a broadside to anyone
who’s ever shied away from emotion, from love, from the things
that make us human and remarkable and which convinced us we must have
come from the clouds such is our potential for beauty.
She duets with birds, invites Rolf Harris once again to play didgeridoo
(23 years after he first did on The Dreaming), juxtaposes Michael
Kamen’s ethereal, modernist strings with bluesy rock guitars and
unhurried disco beats, sings of washing machines, mathematics, sex, the
sea and spiritual transcendence. She is still relevant because she
doesn’t seek relevance—Kate Bush has always been external
to trends, to the fluctuating verisimilitudes of popular culture. She
has always operated within a world of her own creation, and that is why
she will always be enticing, enlivening, fascinating.
Frankly it’s an honour to be on the same planet as her. Because,
even after 12 years of laundry and washing the dishes and making fairy
cakes and raising a child, she is still absolutely visionary, a
creative talent and empathy untrammelled by conceit or time or
self-consciousness; she is a genius. Aerial isn’t perfect, but it
is magnificent.
Copyright 2001-2006 stylusmagazine.com
If a week is a long time in politics then twelve years in the music
industry is practically the seven ages of man and then some. And yet
the timing of Kate Bush's absurdly long-awaited comeback is impeccable:
the Futureheads have recently given her her biggest hit as a songwriter
in two decades, it's no great a leap of imagination to see her as
essentially Alison Goldfrapp's mum, and artists as diverse as The
Streets and The Mars Volta have made entire albums of sequential
storytelling. Essentially, then, La Bush is either a woman of
exceptionally providential synchronicity or absolute genius. As you can
tell by those booming heads above, it would appear to be the latter.
Of course, it would be a naive soul that claimed she was ever lacking
in ambition, but to come back with a double CD is a statement of no
little boldness regardless. Moreover, it should come as no real shock
to discover that CD1 - or, as she'd prefer to consider it, 'A Sea Of
Honey' - is, in fairness, madder than a bumper box of frogs dislodged
from its perch on a precarious hatstand. 'King Of The Mountain', which
opens proceedings, you'll already be familiar with as the only comeback
single in history to be a Bjork'n'Sade Celebrity Deathmatch on the
subject of Elvis, but, quite frankly, terrific though it is, it's the
stuff of Westlife compared to what else happens in its wake. For
someone whose existence since '93 has made Morrissey between
'Maladjusted' and 'You Are The Quarry' appear to have the public
profile of Kate Moss, to record a song called 'How To Be Invisible' is
outrageously cheeky. Yet it's stunning regardless, combining spacious
electronica, military drumming, properly dirty guitars and eccentric
incantations into what proves to be one of this record's most
accessible moments in spite of recalling her own, celebratedly
difficult 'Get Out Of My House'. There's plenty more uniqueness
besides: 'Mrs Bartolozzi', one of the most-discussed tracks here, is a
gorgeously piano-driven and surprisingly epic marriage of the
unsettlingly domestic and complexly carnal, 'Joanni' is a completely
electronic and not-un-Vangelisesque reverie directed to a woman rich in
mystery and dignity - not unlike its creator, if we're honest - and
closing on some breathtaking whispery French added to some Muppet-like
humming. Courtesy of some highly bubbly keyboards and a world of Mick
Karny bass, 'π' is incredibly moving for a song that's essentially
built around the recitation of, unless we're mistaken, that selfsame
figure to 109 decimal places (pretentious? Hell, no more than
Spiritualized's glorious '100 Bars'!), and then there's 'Bertie', a
paean to Bush Jr. that kicks off with a lute introduction, changes time
signature (yes, there's a lot of that here), and ends up as a
magnificent madrigal that'll leave Circulus feeling, for once, behind
the times. As you might've gathered, there aren't exactly loads of
records like this doing the rounds.
And then we get to 'A Sky Of Honey', or, more prosaically, CD2, which
would seem to suggest that its other half is in fact a repository for
all the spectacular songs Kate wrote that don't fit on this one. Not
only is it a self-contained entity a la her previous 'The Ninth Wave',
but it's rather more personally revelatory and singular of purpose than
its counterpart. When the excellent 'The Red Shoes' came out, Terry
Staunton's affectionate review in the NME posited the hope that, if the
follow-up was inferior, it'd be because Bush was rather happier. So he
at least will be profoundly chuffed to discover that not only is this
every bit as ace, but she is in fact more joyful than we've ever known
her. The nine tracks here blend into each other deliciously, focussing
on what must amount to 24 hours in the life of a woman who's unafraid
to dream but can see romance at every turn. Inevitably, the results are
staggering, abetted by some of the richest vocals of her career and
including some truly astounding material. 'Nocturn' is beauty
incarnate, beginning as a widescreen, beatless and virtually choral
hymn to escaping the strictures of society, while 'Somewhere In
Between' is as close as she's come yet to drum'n'bass, awash with
narcoleptic twinkle and swimming in 'West End Girls'-like keyboard
atmospherics, to say nothing of the impossible romance of the
arpeggio-heavy 'Prologue' or the ludicrously wonderful 'Sunset', which
alludes to the Beatles' 'Blackbird' and spends a while as a torch song
punctuated by manipulatively lachrymose cello before ultimately taking
a bizarre left turn into beatific flamenco territory. None of which can
quite compete with the spectacle of Kate cackling like an especially
amused slattern or, indeed, the experience of Rolf Harris, playing the
role of "The Painter", giving it his best Nick Cave, both of which also
happen here. Lawks!
Quite what younger listeners will make of this is, admittedly, anyone's
guess, but rare - actually, non-existent - is the album of hers you
can't say that about, and yet she's continued to bewitch newcomers
galore since the 70s. Heroically, she's delivered again; not only will
those approaching afresh enjoy an incomparable hour and a half, but
longtime Bush believers will find themselves treated to an
intoxicatingly contemporary fusion of 'The Dreaming' and 'Hounds Of
Love', which is more than anyone could've reasonably demanded. It's no
coincidence that this starts with 'King Of The Mountain' and ends with
the lyrics "up, up on the roof, in the sun"; 'Aerial' towers over the
vast majority of even this year's embarrassment of riches, and, with
it, Kate Bush proves herself not only increasingly influential but also
enduringly imperial. Worth every day of the wait, and then some.
Iain Moffat - PlayLouder.com
reviewed on 03 Nov 2005
Part One: A Sea of Honey
King of the Mountain
Could you see the aisles of women?
Could you see them screaming & weeping?
Could you see the storm rising?
Could you see the guy who was driving?
Could you climb higher and higher?
Could you climb right over the top?
Why does a multi millionaire
Fill up his home with priceless junk?
The wind is whistling
The wind is whistling
Though the house
Elvis are you out there somewhere
Looking like a happy man?
In the snow with Rosebud
And king of the mountain
Another Hollywood waitress
Is telling us she’s having your baby
And there’s a rumour that you’re on ice
And you will rise again someday
And there’s a photograph
Where you’re dancing on your grave
The wind is whistling
The wind is whistling
Through the house
Elvis are you out there somewhere
Looking like a happy man?
In the snow with Rosebud
And king of the mountain
The wind it blows
The wind it blows the door closed
pi
Sweet and gentle sensitive man
With an obsessive nature and deep fascination
For numbers
And a complete infatuation with the calculation
Of PI
Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity
3.1415926535 897932
3846 264 338 3279
Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity
But he must, he must, he must
Put a number to it
50288419 716939937510
582319749 44 59230781
6406286208 821 4808651 32
Oh he love, he love, he love
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity
82306647 0938446095 505 8223…
Bertie
Here comes the sunshine
Here comes that son of mine
Here comes the everything
Here’s a song and a song for him
Sweet kisses
Three wishes
Lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely Bertie
Lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely
You lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely Bertie
Lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely
The most wilful
The most beautiful
The most truly fantastic smile
I’ve ever seen
Sweet kisses
Three wishes
Lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely Bertie
Lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely
You lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely Bertie
Lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely
You lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely Bertie
Lovely Lovely Lovely Lovely
You bring me so much joy
And then you bring me
More Joy x6
Mrs Bartolozzi
I remember it was that Wednesday
Oh when it rained and it rained
They traipsed mud all over the house
It took hours and hours to scrub it out
All over the hall carpet
I took my mop and bucket
And I cleaned and I cleaned
The kitchen floor
Until it sparkled
Then I took my laundry basket
And put the linen all in it
And everything I could fit in it
And all our dirty clothes that hadn’t gone into the wash
And all your shirts and jeans and things
And put them in the new washing machine
Washing machine
Washing machine
I watched them go ‘round and ‘round
My blouse wrapping itself in your trousers
Oh the waves are going out
My skirt floating up around my waist
As I wade out into the surf
Oh and the waves are coming in
Oh and the waves are going out
Oh and you’re standing right behind me
Little fish swim between my legs
Oh and the waves are coming in
Oh and the waves are going out
Oh and the waves are coming in
Out of the corner of my eye
I think I see you standing outside
But it’s just your shirt
Hanging on the washing line
Waving its arm as the wind blows by
And it looks so alive
Nice and white
Just like its climbed right out
Of my washing machine
Washing machine
Washing machine
Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy
Get that dirty shirty clean
Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy
Make those cuffs and collars gleam
Everything clean and shiny
Washing machine
Washing machine
Washing machine
How to be invisible
I found a book on how to be invisible
Take a pinch of keyhole
And fold yourself up
You cut along a dotted line
You think inside out
And you’re invisible
Eye of Braille
Hem of anorak
Stem of wallflower
Hair of doormat
I found a book on how to be invisible
On the edge of the labyrinth
Under a veil you must never lift
Pages that you must never turn
In the labyrinth
You stand in front of a million doors
And each one holds a million more
Corridors that lead to the world
Of the invisible
Corridors that twist and turn
Corridors that blister and burn
Eye of Braille
Hem of anorak
Stem of wallflower
Hair of doormat
Is that the wind from the desert song?
Is that the autumn leaf falling?
Or is that you walking home?
Is that the wind from the desert song?
Is that the autumn leaf falling?
Or is that you walking home?
Is that a storm in the swimming pool?
You take a pinch of keyhole
And fold yourself up
You cut along a dotted line
You think inside out
You jump ‘round three times
You jump into the mirror
And you’re invisible
Joanni
All the banners stop waving
And the flags stop flying
And the silence comes over
Thousands of soldiers
Thousands of soldiers
Who is that girl? Do I know her face?
Who is that girl?
Joanni, Joanni wears a golden cross
And she looks so beautiful in her armour
Joanni, Joanni blows a kiss to God
And she never wears a ring on her finger
All the cannon are firing
And the swords are clashing
And the horses are charging
And the flags are flying
And the battle is raging
And the bells, the bells are ringing
Who is that girl? Do I know her face?
Who is that girl?
Joanni, Joanni wears a golden cross
And she looks so beautiful in her armour
Joanni, Joanni blows a kiss to God
And she never wears a ring on her finger
Joanni, Joanni, Joanni, Joanni blows a kiss to God
And she just looks beautiful in her armour
Beautiful in her armour
"Elle parle à Dieu et aux anges
Dans ses prières
Venez Sainte Catherine
Venez Sainte Marguerite
Elle a besoin de vous deux
Les voix, les voix du feu
Chante avec moi petite soeur
Les voix, les voix, les voix !"
She talk to God and to angels
In her prayers
Come Saint Catherine
Come Saint Marguerite
She needs you both
The voices, the voices of fire
Sing with me little sister
The voices, the voices, the voices!
A Coral Room
There’s a city, draped in net
Fisherman net
And in the half light, in the half light
It looks like every tower
Is covered in webs
Moving and glistening and rocking
It’s babies in rhythm
As the spider of time is climbing
Over the ruins
There were hundreds of people living here
Sails at the windows
And the planes came crashing down
And many a pilot drowned
And the speed boats flying above
Put your hand over the side of the boat
What do you feel?
My mother and her little brown jug
It held her milk
And now it holds our memories
I can hear her singing
“Little brown jug don’t I love thee”
“Little brown jug don’t I love thee”
Ho ho ho, hee hee hee
I hear her laughing
She is standing in the kitchen
As we come in the back door
See it fall
See it fall
Oh little spider climbing out of a broken jug
And the pieces will lay there a while
In a house draped in net
In a room filled with coral
Sails at the window
Forests of masts
Put your hand over the side of the boat
Put your hand over the side of the boat
What do you feel?
Aerial - Part Two : A Sky of Honey
Prelude
(Bertie speaking)
Mummy…
Daddy…
The day is full of birds
Sounds like there saying words
Prologue
We’re gonna be laughing about this
We’re gonna be dancing around
It’s gonna be so good now
It’s gonna be so good
Oh so exciting, mmh go on and on
Every time you leave us
So Summer will be gone
So you’ll never grow old to us
It’s gonna be so good now
It’s gonna be so good
Can you see the lark ascending?
Oh so romantic, swept me off my feet
Like some kind of magic
Like the light in Italy
Lost its way across the sea…
Roma Roma mia
Tesoro mio, bella
Pieno di sole luce
Balli così bene, bene
Pianissimo
Pianissimo
Chorus :
What a lovely afternoon
What a lovely afternoon
Oh will you come with us
To find the song of the oil and brush
An Architect’s Dream
Yes, I need to get that tone
A little bit lighter there
Maybe with some dark accents coming in from the side
Hmm, let’s go
Watching the painter painting,
And all the time, the light is changing
And he keeps painting
That bit there, it was an accident
But he’s so pleased
It’s the best mistake, he could make
And it’s my favourite piece
It’s just great
The flick of a wrist
Twisting down to the hips
So the lovers begin, with a kiss
In a tryst
It’s just a smudge
But what it becomes
In his hands
Curving and sweeping
Rising and reaching
I could feel what he was feeling
Watching the painter painting
Lines like these have got to be
An architect’s dream
It’s always the same
Whenever he works on a pavement
Watching the painter painting
It starts to rain
And all the time
The light is changing
The Painter’s Link
The Painter :
It’s raining
What has become of my painting
All the colours are running
The chorus :
So all the colours run
So all the colours run
See what they’ve become
A wonderful sunset
Sunset
Could be honeycomb
In a sea of honey
A sky of honey
Whose shadow, long and low
Is slipping out of wet clothes?
And changes into
The most beautiful
Iridescent blue
Who knows who wrote that song of Summer
That blackbirds sing at dusk
This is a song of colour
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Then climb into bed and turn to dust
Every sleepy light
Must say goodbye
To day before it dies
In a sea of honey
A sky of honey
Keep us close to your heart
So if the skies turn dark
We may live on in
Comets and stars
Who knows who wrote that song of Summer
That blackbirds sing at dusk
This is a song of colour
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Then climb into bed and turn to dust
Who knows who wrote that song of Summer
That blackbirds sing at dusk
This is a song of colour
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Then climb into bed and turn to dust
Chorus :
Oh sing of summer and a sunset
And sing for us, so that we may remember
The day writes the words right across the sky
They all go all the way up to the top of the night
Aerial Tal
(Instrumental)
Somewhere In Between
We went up to the top of the highest hill
And stopped
Still
It was just so beautiful
It was just so beautiful
It was just so beautiful
This is where the shadows come to play
‘Twixt the day
And night
Dancing and skipping
Along a chink of light
Somewhere in between
The waxing and the waning wave
Somewhere in between
What the song and silence say
Somewhere in between
The ticking and the tocking clock
Somewhere in a dream between
Sleep and waking up
Somewhere in between
Breathing out and breathing in
Like twilight is neither night nor morning
Not one of us would dare to break
The silence
Oh how we have longed
For something that would
Make us feel so…
Somewhere in between
The waxing and the waning wave
Somewhere in between
The night and the daylight
Somewhere in between
The ticking and the tocking clock
Somewhere in between
What the song and silence say
Somewhere in between
Breathing out and breathing in
The Chorus :
Goodnight sun
Goodnight sun
The sun :
Goodnight mum
Nocturn
The chorus :
Sweet dreams…
On this Midsummer might
Everyone is sleeping
We go driving into the moonlight
Could be in a dream
Our clothes are on the beach
These prints of our feet
Lead right up to the sea
No one, no one is here
No one, no one is here
We stand in the Atlantic
We become panoramic
We tire of the city
We tire of it all
We long for just that something more
Could be in a dream
Our clothes are on the beach
These prints of our feet
Lead right up to the sea
No one, no one is here
No one, no one is here
We stand in the Atlantic
We become panoramic
The stars are caught in our hair
The stars are on our fingers
A veil of diamond dust
Just reach up and touch it
The sky’s above our heads
The sea’s around our legs
In milky, silky water
We swim further and further
We dive down… We dive down
A diamond night, a diamond sea
and a diamond sky…
We dive deeper and deeper
We dive deeper and deeper
Could be we are here
Could be we are in a dream
It came up on the horizon
Rising and rising
In a sea of honey, a sky of honey
A sea of honey, a sky of honey
The chorus :
Look at the light, all the time it’s a changing
Look at the light, climbing up the aerial
Bright, white coming alive jumping off the aerial
All the time it’s a changing, like now…
All the time it’s a changing, like then again…
All the time it’s a changing
And all the dreamers are waking.
Aerial
The dawn has come
And the wine will run
And the song must be sung
And the flowers are melting
In the sun
I fele I want to be up on the roof
I feel I gotta get up on the roof
Up, up on the roof
Up, up on the roof
Oh the dawn has come
And the song must be sung
And the flowers are melting
What kind of language is this?
What kind of language is this?
I can’t hear a word you’re saying
Tell me what you are singing
In the sun
All of the birds are laughing
All of the birds are laughing
Come on let’s all join in
Come on let’s all join in
I want to be up on the roof
I’ve gotta be up on the roof
Up, up high on the roof
Up, up on the roof
In the sun
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