In 2011 Kate Bush ended a six-year silence with the launch of self-covers album Director’s Lower, adopted by a very new work, 50 Phrases For Snow. She mentioned the issues arising with Prog in her trademark maverick method.
You wait six years for a Kate Bush album, then two come alongside without delay. By the requirements of most musicians it’s is a formidable work price. By the requirements of this most reclusive of artists, it’s nothing in need of miraculous.
50 Phrases For Snow could have been recorded in parallel with its fast predecessor, Director’s Lower, however it’s no companion piece. The place the latter album discovered the singer re-imagining songs from her personal again catalogue with a perfectionist’s ear, 50 Phrases For Snow is a model new work – and one which Ronseals her standing as one in all British music’s nice mavericks.
Which different artist would sympathise with Bigfoot, as she does in Wild Man; or fantastise a couple of roll within the slush with a snowman with out a trace of a blush, as in Misty? She evens provides Stephen Fry to her record of unlikely collaborators –the plummy-voiced raconteur recites the eponymous phrases for snow, all of which sound like they’ve been fully made up: ‘whippoccino,’ ‘phlegm de neige,’ ‘merenguer peaks.’
An exploration of humanity’s relationship with the weather, 50 Phrases represents the most recent step on Bush’s 30-year journey from the wide-eyed ingénue of debut album The Kick Inside, by way of the paranormal pagan-folk faerie queen of The Hounds Of Love, to her present incarnation as a regal, if barely batty, earth mom. Musically, it’s intricate and otherworldly – prog with a small ‘p.’ Not for her the grandiose musical assertion; for Bush, it’s all within the particulars.
The parable of the singer as some type of reclusive Miss Havisham isn’t strictly true. She merely had pop stardom thrust on her early, and has spent the previous 30 years beating a retreat, preferring the comforts of domesticity to the trials of self-publicity. She is a reserved interviewee, preferring to mull over solutions somewhat than serving up zinging quotes. However then that’s simply one thing else that units this quiet maverick aside.
50 Phrases For Snow is a really wintery-sounding album.
I see it as a winter album. I really like the texture of a chilly, lengthy winter within the countryside. I really like every thing about it, actually. Making snowmen, how the moonlight displays on the snow, the muffled sounds, log fires, midnight Mass, strolling by way of the woods. I seen that once I left London, I began to expertise the seasons extra deeply.
Trendy civilisation appears intent on eliminating each ounce of thriller we have now left
The music Misty is a couple of girl who spends the night time with a snowman. You sing, ‘I can really feel you melting in my hand’ – is that meant to be as impolite because it sounds?
No, nothing that graphic! I simply questioned what it was wish to sleep with a snowman, to expertise that type of fleeting intimacy. In fact, the lyric could be interpreted as containing symbolic references: moist sheets…
In Wild Man, you describe a legendary, Bigfoot-like creature who seeks human contact.
I really like thriller – issues we don’t fairly know for positive; uncharted territory. And fashionable civilisation and so-called progress appears intent on eliminating each ounce of thriller we have now left. Data is a phenomenal factor, however generally not figuring out one thing, not being completely positive, could be stunning too. Possibly on some stage we don’t wish to be informed Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
Having mentioned that, in fact I’m all for science. And possibly someday science will permit us to speak with angels or different mysterious creatures. By no means say by no means.
You usually use background noises to create an atmosphere. In Lake Tahoe, it’s crows.
Rooks, somewhat. I wished to counsel desolation; a naked, barely miserable panorama. You usually hear that sound in films concerning the Center Ages. I’ve all the time discovered it odd that, in quite a lot of well-liked music, you virtually by no means hear nature. Possibly it’s as a result of I stay within the nation, however I discover nature is so overwhelming.
There’s an actual magical-realism really feel to Snowed In At Wheeler Avenue. A pair of lovers flip up in several eras: in Paris within the 20s, London through the Blitz, New York post-9/11.
I’m fascinated by different eras, however I’m glad to be alive now… not that way back, ladies weren’t allowed to be artistic
I used to be in search of an authentic method to deal with reincarnation, and that déjà vu feeling you get. Like assembly somebody who appears so acquainted it’s uncanny. Generally it’s onerous to not really feel you’ve identified them earlier than, someday, someplace. The lovers I describe are mad about one another, however torn, like magnets, attracting one another and pushing one another away.
Your music appears to soundtrack occasions from a unique period.
Nicely, I’m fascinated by different eras, however I’m glad to be alive now. I imply, not that way back, ladies weren’t allowed to be artistic, to have a profession. Girls had been anticipated to sacrifice their very own aspirations to their husbands.
In fact, any artist would really like their work to have a timeless high quality, in that it transcends fads and developments. I believe I’ve been quirky and cussed and authentic sufficient to not be caught in a development.”
Which historic characters would you invite to dinner?
Winston Churchill and Stephen Fry.
Stephen is on the brand new album, reciting the 50 completely different phrases for snow. A few of them, like ‘zhivagodamarbletash,’ sound fully made up.
I made most of them up! I imply: ‘phlegm de neige’ – ‘boomerangablanca’? I liked Stephen’s supply; I wished a voice that would challenge each authority and heat.
Given the quirkiness of your songs, how do you give instructions to the musicians you’re employed with? Do you ever say, “This could sound like a willow tree in a rain storm?”
I’m not completely satisfied about working so lengthy on one challenge… However what’s the choice? Releasing a mediocre album?
I often begin by explaining the construction of the music. I inform them what the rhythm needs to be, and the important thing clearly. And I level out the place the music ought to stay naked or understated, and at which closing dates they’ll add fills, little touches. Generally, however not all the time, I inform them what the lyric means, what the music is about. After which it’s their flip to shock me.
Do you have a tendency to jot down ‘up’ music while you’re feeling good, then moody, ‘darkish’ stuff while you’re down?
No, I don’t assume so. Aerial had a few heavy songs – I sang concerning the demise of my mom. And but I used to be completely satisfied throughout that interval.
Aerial got here out 12 years after your earlier album, The Pink Footwear. Why did it take so lengthy?
I’m not completely satisfied about working so lengthy on one challenge or about not having launched extra work. It’s onerous work, it may be tedious, absorbing, exhausting even. However what’s the choice? Releasing a mediocre, rushed, half-finished album?
You proceed engaged on songs even after they’ve been launched. Isn’t {that a} bit obsessive?
That has occurred, yeah. I wouldn’t name it obsessive – it’s merely being devoted and caring, I suppose. I’m by no means content material. It’s by no means fairly good. That’s why I did Director’s Lower. I hear an ideal model in my head, and generally the model on document wasn’t fairly that. I don’t know whether or not that’s simply me or whether or not all artists really feel like that.
To some folks, visibility is every thing. We are inclined to overlook that fame and all that needs to be a by-product of expertise and onerous work
Final 12 months and this 12 months had been fairly intense. Individuals are inclined to assume you’re idling while you don’t launch any work, however I work on a regular basis. Solely at my very own tempo, and to my very own requirements.
Do you work from home?
Yeah. I operate higher in managed environment. Merely being comfy, surrounded by… properly, love and sweetness. And nature. And I didn’t wish to miss out on my son rising up.
To some folks, visibility is every thing. We are inclined to overlook that fame and all that needs to be a by-product of expertise and onerous work, not the opposite method round. I’ve discovered seclusion and creativity to be pure companions.
You’ve famously solely toured as soon as, in 1979. What’s holding you from doing it once more?
I don’t know. I hear folks declare that my first and solely tour was such a horrible expertise, however that’s not true. I had a good time; I liked the present and the circus troupe-like camaraderie. Possibly not the stress and the journey. However once I give it some thought, I really feel primarily a way of euphoria. And people had been pioneering days, you recognize. I believe we had been the primary to make use of headset microphones – produced from a coat hanger!
You had been within the viewers when David Bowie ‘retired’ Ziggy Stardust, on the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973. So you understand how a lot followers hanker for extra.
I keep in mind that Bowie gig fairly clearly. I cried, like all different women. I bear in mind he appeared somewhat moved too. It appeared the tip of an period.
Performing stay isn’t a precedence for me. Creating new work within the studio is, as is household life. I hold busy – after which once I lookup one other 5 years have handed.
My father was all the time ready to take heed to any new music… even when it wasn’t superb
What recommendation would you give to a younger songwriter simply beginning out?
Persevere. Don’t be afraid. Realise it’s a studying course of – nothing will ever be good. Be cussed. Demand respect. Don’t rush a music that doesn’t wish to come simply but.
Create a pleasing working setting; encompass your self with individuals who encourage you. I’ll all the time be grateful to my father who was all the time ready to take heed to any new music I’d made, even when it wasn’t superb.
I’d wish to say extra, however it’s onerous to place in phrases. That’s one of many issues with interviews.
