FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Griffin
Seven: 1983 and a Need for a Rebuild
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BEFORE going on to talk about…
And Dream of Sheep, this is a slight pause for breath. One that Kate Bush needed after the release of The Dreaming in 1982. That album was marked by long days in the studio. Bush hardly resting at all. The first album she produced alone, it was maybe a chance for Bush to prove herself. The Dreaming is a remarkable album and one that did well in the charts. However, it did not sell as many units as The Kick Inside in 1978 and EMI might have felt it was a disappointment. Bush threw herself into promotion and was intense when it came to this album. It was clear that something needed to change. She was definitely not going to bring another producer in. She knew that she could produce her next album and ideas were starting to form and take shape not that long after The Dreaming was released. However, she did suffer nervous exhaustion and has to rest. It would be three years after The Dreaming until Hounds of Love was released. A lot was achieved in that time. As I have said in other features, Kate Bush had a bespoke studio built at East Wickham Farm. This was her family home and where she spent her childhood and a lot of her teenage years. It was a place that was so important and provided solace and comfort. Bush also took up dance again and got in better shape. Bush and her boyfriend Del Palmer (who was her engineer and played on her albums) moved to a 17th-century farmhouse near Sevenoaks. I will come to an article that looks at what Kate Bush was doing in 1983. I have written about this before but, as I am celebrating forty years of Hounds of Love, it is important to look at 1983 and how important a year that was.
After The Dreaming was released, Bush reconnected with family she had not seen in over a year. She went to films and bought herself a VW Golf. She spent time with her cats and Del Palmer. She went for walks and listened to a lot of music. Bush also ate less takeaways, which was a bad habit when recording The Dreaming. She ate at least sone healthy meal a day. Thanks to Graeme Thomson and Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush for that information. The move to the countryside Bush recalled was one of her best decisions. It did seem idyllic! All of these positive moves affected the sound and recording of Hounds of Love. I want to come to this article, where we learn more about Kate Bush’s 1983:
“In 1983 Kate Bush was in need of a change in her personal and professional life. Her last album, The Dreaming, released in September the previous year, took a heavy toll and considerable amounts of energy to complete. Ensconced within the confines of a recording studio for hours on end during the many months it took to complete the record, the result was what many saw as an experimental and difficult album. Bush said of that album: “It was very dark and about pain and negativity and the way people treat each other badly. It was a sort of cry really.” While the album climbed to #3 in the UK album charts, it did not do that well in sales numbers, and the singles it produced did not fare well either. A change was in order, and it took a three-pronged approach: new house, new studio, new dance teacher. All three contributed to her next album in varied ways, and the result was the classic, fantastic and timeless album Hounds of Love.
Kate Bush experienced a period of deep fatigue after the release of The Dreaming: “I was just a complete wreck, physically and mentally. I’d wake up in the morning and find I couldn’t move.” Taking a U turn from the hustle and bustle of promotion activities, photo shoots, interviews and life in the media, she purchased a house in Kent and retired to domestic bliss in the country. Song writing became a very different experience: “The stimulus of the countryside is fantastic. I sit at my piano and watch skies moving and trees blowing and that’s far more exciting than buildings and roads and millions of people.”
Musically, the most important contribution of the new house on her next album was a newly built recording studio. Her style of work, ever experimental and in seek of unique ways of expression, was tough on the wallet when using commercial studios. At £90, the going rate for one hour of recording at Abbey Road, The Dreaming cost her and EMI an arm and a leg. Her wish to self-produce her albums and control her artistic destiny with no compromise was another reason for the new studio. In an interview at the time she talked enthusiastically and quite proficiently about her new recording space: “We have a Soundcraft mixing deck, a Studer A-80 tape machine, lots of outboard gear, and Q-lock. We normally use 48 tracks now, even if it’s for a vocal idea or something. 24 tracks doesn’t seem to go anywhere with me. And the Fairlight, of course. We have a room simulator called a Quantec, which is my favorite. It would be lovely to be able to draw the sort of room you wanted your voice to be in. I think that’s the next step.”
That Fairlight she mentioned was possibly the most important piece of gear in that studio. Developed in Sydney, Australia, the Fairlight CMI was an innovative synthesizer, sampler and a digital audio workstation that once released in 1979 was famously adopted by Peter Gabriel. Bush first used it on the album Never for Ever, making it world-famous with the sound of breaking glass on the single Babooshka. During the work on The Dreaming she used the instrument a lot more, and by 1983 she decided to purchase one of her own and make it her go-to tool for music writing: “Most of the songs were written on Fairlight and synths and not piano, which was moving away really from the earlier albums, where all my material was written on piano. And there is something about the character of a sound – you hear a sound and it has a whole quality of its own, that it can be sad or happy or… And that immediately conjures up images, which can of course help you to think of ideas that lead you on to a song.”
When it came to that new house in the countryside, Bush said how they (her and Del Palmer) stumbled across it. The back door was open and they were able to sort of wander in. This force that was attracting them to this house. The positive stimulus of the countryside is instrumental for Hounds of Love. Not only near Sevenoaks but in Ireland, where Bush spent a lot of time writing and recording. Those some of the stress and energy of London was beneficial for The Dreaming, Bush would not have been able to record Hounds of Love if she still lived there. Bush waxed lyrical about watching the skies and trees rather than hordes of people and traffic. How she was doing much better. People would call her up and she would be gardening! Spending the summer of 1983 out of the house – something she had not done in years -, there was not a lot of promotion or media attention. The exception being on the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, 29th July, 1983, when she was asked by D.J. if there was any gossip about her fella. Bush did reveal that she was dating a man named Del. She had kept his name private pretty much up until then. This revelation was quite big! Bush more comfortable revealing the fact she was in this domestic bliss. That she could reveal certain things about her private life to the media. Bush retained her London home in Eltham but she did not spend much time there. If she was there, then she was be dancing in her dance studio. It was a space filled with natural light and wooden flooring. Dance was important and something she spent a lot of 1983 doing. Beforehand, she would have to hastily assemble routines or do so when in transit.
Bush did not do much dance after 1979’s The Tour of Life. She missed the interaction with dance tutors and that discipline. In London, she took dance classes with Dyane Gray-Cullert – a Detroit-born instructor – who had a background in the Martha Graham technique – which did impact her writing. Graeme Thomson notes how The Dreaming is a “subterranean album , dark and twisted”. The positivity and energy she now had was partly because of dance. She could channel this into her music. There was bleakness and darker colours on The Dreaming. Something that maybe didn’t completely suit her. In the summer of 1983, she wrote to her fan club and said that 1983 was like 1976 in many ways. In terms of happiness and work-life balance. Bush had been singing and dancing in the day and singing and writing at night. Influenced by her friend, Peter Gabriel – who had recently built his own studio -, Bush deigned a 48-track studio with assistance from her father, Dr. Bush. Del Palmer was becoming more invested in engineering. Bush had this technology and kit in her new studio but had not really been too hands-on to that point. This would shift with Hounds of Love. The studio weas completed in the autumn of 1983. She did not have to stress about heavy studio bills and being on the clock. Here, she could relax and create in this supportive environment. Out of the window, she could look into the garden and grounds where she played a s child. Her family were always visiting and provided support and hospitality. Musicians and friends would pop in and hang and chat about music. There was this communal vibe. Something that was lacking from her previous album. All of this love and relaxation led to an album that, whilst it had stressful moments, seemed smoother and happier. Bush’s father would ask if anyone wanted a takeaway. Her mother, Hannah, would come in with tea and cakes. It was ideal!
“Working from home with a piano, a Fairlight, a Linn drum programme and her voice, recording onto an eight-track Soundcraft desk and tape machine, Bush and Palmer worked up much of the album in the Kent countryside between the summer and autumn 1983”. Rather than there being demos that were referenced but then scrapped and re-recorded, the demos from the home studio transformed into the masters. That early flash of inspiration could be retained. Crucially, 1983 was when Bush wrote Running Up That Hill. Originally called A Deal with God, this classic was composed in her music room whilst she looked out of the window to the valley below. It is clear how important 1983 was. In terms of changes. A new home, more time with family and friends. Her own studio being constructed. Writing of the album happening at this time. Many assumed Kate Bush’s 1983 (and 1984) was her resting all the time and not writing music. In fact, she was overhauling her life and almost returning to a sense of balance and contentment she had not experienced for many years. Family and home vital when it came to recording of her fifth studio album. It is the year I was born and I like the fact that I was technically around when Bush was laying the groundwork for Hounds of Love. Rather than her leaping into a new album exhausted and with little direction, Hounds of Love’s creation and evolution seemed like one of the most creative and pleasant experience she faced. It was a very happy time in many ways. It gives us an understanding of why Hounds of Love sounds like it does. From the exhaustion that Bush faced when completing The Dreaming, with Hounds of Love, there was this magnificent and much-needed…
JIG of life.