exploremusic

If Kate Bush were a technology company, she’s be Apple.  She has fanboys/girls around the world who believe she can do no wrong.  They will defend her and her music to their final breaths.  Rumours of new material are tracked with the ferocity of someone trying to get the latest on the next iPhone.  And when something does appear, the Faithful sit and pay rapt attention.

Kate, however, is a little more critical of what she does–so much so that she decided to have another go at a bunch of songs from two of her later albums, The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993).

The songs on Director’s Cut are semi-new recordings.  While most of the instrumentation remains intact, the vocals and drums are 100% new (recorded with analogue gear, natch).  The arrangements have been tweaked and a few new lyrics have been added and/or edited.

So how has she done with this project she calls Director’s Cut?  Has that awesome Tinker Bell kookiness been preserved?  And let’s face it:  Kate is 22 years older than when she made this album, so you may notice that her register has lowered somewhat.  Not that this is a bad thing.  She still has one of the sweetest singing voices bestowed by the gods.

1.  Flower of the Mountain: A fairly substantial re-imagining of the title track of The Sensual World which stretches the original’s running time to about six minutes.   There’s even a new video (see the end of the post).    The James Joyce quotes (Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from the last blessed pages of Ulysses) remain.  You’ll see words like “timelessness” used to describe this song.  Appropriate.

2.  Song of Solomon: Track five from The Red Shoes that includes the Trio Bulgarka about halfway through the song.  Everything still sounds so fragile and close to total emotional collapse.  If you identified with the original, you’ll be fine.

3.  Lily: Directly following “The Song of Solomon” on The Red Shoes, the weird spoken work intro remains but the dated-sound loop of 90s-style percussion is gone.  (Live drums, people; it’s the ticket to timelessness.)  There’s still power in Kate’s voice.  You’ll know what I mean when you hear it.

4.  Deeper Understanding: On the vinyl version of The Sensual World, this was side two, track two.  It’s two minutes longer than the original.  And that’s not Aut0-Tune kids.  Before that horrible came along, grown-ups sparingly used a device called a Vocoder to create these vocal effects.  Weird, perhaps, but wouldn’t you be disappointed if Kate didn’t try stuff like this?

5.  The Red Shoes: Released as the fourth single from the album, I met Kate for the one-and-only time when she visited Toronto to introduce The Line, the Cross & the Curve, the short film based on this album.  The original did nothing for me, but I do like the sounds of the ancients imparted to this re-recording.

6.  This Woman’s Work: One of my all-time favourite Bush songs (inexplicably buried as the 11th track on The Sensual World), this was massive request item on alt-rock radio back in its day.  It’s been stripped back even further (if you can imagine that!), ditching piano for an electronic keyboard.  As blasphemous as that may seem, the result is startlingly good.  The song now has an almost unbearable lightness, extending almost a full three minutes beyond the original’s 3:32 running time.  There will be much debate amongst the faithful as to whether this recording is a masterpiece or folly.  I side with the former.  (This, by the way, is the third version of the song.  The ORIGINAL original appearances on the She’s Having a Baby soundtrack from 1988.)

7.  Moments of Pleasure: The strings of the original from The Red Shoes version are gone.  Instead, we’re given a piano ballad with simple vocals.  A powerful showcase for Kate’s voice.

8.  Never Be Mine: The orchestration from this The Sensual World track remains, but the beat is de-emphasized.  Production is less murky than the original and the lyrics and delivery seem to cut through with much more force, even though they’re delivered in the signature KB style.  More Trio Bulgarka, too.

9.  Top of the City: Track 8 from The Sensual World has its diva moments (and I mean that with all respect).  The power of the lyrical metaphors (feeling invisible in the modern word) becomes obvious about halfway through.  When she asks “take me to the top of the city,” I really, really want to.

10.  And So Is Love: The second track from The Red Shoes is profoundly changed with one word.  In the original, Kate sings “But now we see that life is sad and so is love.”  Now she sings “sweet” instead of “sad.”  The lower register of her voice is most apparent here.  And yes, the original Eric Clapton guitar licks have been preserved.

11. Rubberband Girl: The original from The Red Shoes (the first single, too) was kind of bouncy and fun, but this edition is a clunker.  It’s almost unrecognizable.   And why is the recording so murky when compared to the rest of the record?

Final Verdict: 9/10.  Only the new “Rubberband Girl” fails to meet the wondrous expectations I have of every Kate Bush release.