FEATURE:
The Best of the Other Sides Compilation
The Last of Kate Bush Dipping into the Archive?
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THERE are a mix of emotions…
when Kate Bush announces that she is reissuing an album or bringing out something. It is not brand new music, though the latest announcement is a chance for fans to own a follow-up to an album released in 2018. We will get the Best of the Other Sides soon. The digital release is available from 26th September, and the vinyl and C.D. release is out on 31st October. You can pre-order here. Featuring remixes and B-sides, I wonder if the new album will offer anything new on top of the 2018 release. That was discontinued. It was great to have those incredible B-sides in one place. It is also sometimes a tease for fans. Bush has said that she is issuing this album for those who did not get a chance to own the 2018 box-set. She has mentioned several tracks and provided some commentary/background, which I am guessing will appear among the album’s tracks. We get highlighted Experiment IV and Rocket Man. I want to highlight the text relating to The Man I Love and Under the Ivy:
“This romantic song was written by George and Ira Gershwin and when Larry Adler put an album together of their songs, called The Glory of Gershwin, he asked me to sing this beautiful song. The album was produced by George Martin. I was very fond of George - such a special talent and creative spirit, a really gentle man, very kind and incredibly interesting. It was a great honour to work with him and Larry. George and Larry were very different personalities (Larry was a real character), but they made a great creative combination.
It was released as a single and Kevin Godley directed the video. I loved working with Kevin - so imaginative and great fun. I’d worked with him and Lol Creme when they directed the video for Peter Gabriel’s song, Don’t Give Up. Kevin chose to present the video in a very traditional way which suited the song extremely well. Godley and Creme are huge talents who left their mark not just in the music industry with their intelligence and wit in the band 10CC but also in the visual world with their groundbreaking videos, working with an impressive list of diverse artists."
"I needed a track to put on the B-Side of the single Running Up That Hill so I wrote this song really quickly. As it was just a simple piano/vocal, it was easy to record.
I performed a version of the song that was filmed at Abbey Rd Studios for a TV show which was popular at the time, called The Tube. It was hosted by Jools Holland and Paula Yates. I find Paula’s introduction to the song very touching.
It was filmed in Studio One at Abbey Rd. An enormous room used for recording large orchestras, choirs, film scores, etc. It has a vertiginously high ceiling and sometimes when I was working in Studio Two, a technician, who was a good friend, would take me up above the ceiling of Studio One. We had to climb through a hatch onto the catwalk where we would then crawl across and watch the orchestras working away, completely unaware of the couple of devils hovering in the clouds, way above their heads! I used to love doing this - the acoustics were heavenly at that scary height. We used to toy with the idea of bungee jumping from the hatch."
Her studio albums have been remastered and there has been a lot of retrospection the past six of seven years. However, it is activity from Kate Bush, so one cannot complain! Also, the more retrospection or reissuing we get, it raises the question as to whether this will be Bush ready to start on new work. Kate Bush News were among those who reported on a big and interesting announcement yesterday:
“From her official site announcement:
Fish People are delighted to announce the release of Best of The Other Sides. Digital Release 26th September. Coloured vinyl (Lothlorien colour) release and also CD are available from 31st October. The Other Sides was a collection of all the B-sides and other songs that didn’t exist on any album. It was part of the Remastered Box Set that was released in 2018. That set is no longer available. Three of the tracks have been slightly reworked for the release.
Best of The Other Sides has been designed for people who didn’t have access to that original box set. The title is self-explanatory.
Kate writes: “We have remastered ‘Experiment IV’ and ‘ You Want Alchemy?’ and both include a small edit. I felt ‘ Experiment IV’ would benefit from a longer intro featuring Alan Murphy’s magnificent guitar. ‘You Want Alchemy?’ also has a small edit that tightens up the outro and we’ve re-eq’d the track. ‘Walk Straight Down the Middle’ has also benefitted from being re-eq’d. Hope you enjoy the tweaks!”
The remaining material from The Other Sides will be re released digitally at a later date.”.
It looks like a slimmed version of The Other Sides. It is a pity that we do not get the original reissued. Whatever, it looks like we are going to get more soon enough. I am looking forward the remastered Experiment IV, Walk Straight Down the Middle and You Want Alchemy. The former was a single so had a music video made, though the other two tracks never did. I would love to see Bush releasing a promotional video for one or more of the songs. I hope there is something in the way of a music video. It will not feature Bush, though there would be a lot of interested if she put something out to coincide with the album release. I am sure the physical versions of The Best of the Other Sides will be amazing. The vinyl will be especially impressive. Bush has said how, when it comes to the vinyl release, “all of these are mixed colour vinyl, so each one is individual”. Many fans are embracing a chance to own something not available at the moment. However, many have speculated this is the final bit of looking back before Kate Bush announces a new album. She has spent a lot of time with her older material in recent years. After 2014’s Before the Dawn residency, maybe that adulation and the generations coming together inspired her to focus on her previous work. I don’t think she would have considered this decades ago. The Whole Story, her only greatest hits album, was released in 1986. Kate Bush was hesitant back then of releasing a greatest hits. Always about new music and looking ahead. However, at a certain point in a career, an artist does look back and wants fans old and new to experience their older work in a new way. I think Kate Bush has probably exhausted most avenues.
I do think that there is more in the archives. In terms of unheard material or demos. Maybe Bush does not want to release anything that is incomplete or she is not completely happy with. I do think it would be nice if we got one final album of music that perhaps has never seen the light of the day. Maybe a new greatest hits album that updates The Whole Story. Would fans object to one last repackage and reissue? Technically, a new greatest hits would not be a reissue but an expansion. I do think that Bush is keen to see some of her lesser-heard songs and B-sides put on Spotify and on physical formats. So that it can reach new people. We will learn more very soon about what the tracklisting will be and there might be a post from Kate Bush herself. I wonder whether this is the final time Kate Bush will reissue an album or look back? You have to wonder what else there is. Aerial turns twenty in November, so possibly something relating to that? Will Kate Bush reissue that album or maybe just its second album/disc, A Sky of Honey? I do think that she has probably exhausted the retrospective side. She may not want to spend more time either with reissuing a studio album or remastering B-sides and looking at that side of things. This does all bring to mind whether new music is coming next. I don’t think that we will see an announcement until next year now. However, this unexpected bit of news yesterday has excited people. It is a great release that I am interested in. I am intrigued to hear the remastered Experiment IV particularly. If The Man I Love is in the mix. A 1994 song that shows a different side to her voice. Smokier than pretty much anything she has released. What comes next is anyone’s guess. It is clear Bush is still connected to her past work. She wants to make sure fans have access to it and in physical formats.
Not to say Bush should never reissue an album or dip into the archives. I did wonder if she would release anything around Hounds of Love turning forty (which turned forty on 16th September). Maybe some B-sides or something special. She did not even post to her website, so I wonder why she overlooked one of her favourite albums! It is good that we are hearing from her now. Something that fans can own that was discontinued. A new album…albeit one with older material. But these rare gems. I do feel like this is the end of the archive period. Nowhere really to go in that respect. It could be the case that Kate Bush is now going to spend all of her energy looking to new material. I have written in a feature that is coming out in the future what a new album might sound like and what it will be motivated by in terms of its themes and lyrics. For the moment, it is great that Kate Bush has graced us with this amazing news and a great album with Best of the Other Sides. The vinyl is one you will want to snap up. I might grab the C.D. version. We will get more detail soon in terms of the album appearing digitally and whether there will be another additional release. Even if a few of the songs have had some minor tweaks, I think that it will add new light and depth to these songs. It will be a must-own edition for existing fans, but also a real treat for new fans. Many of whom would not have heard these songs. If some bemoan Kate Bush bringing out existing material and charging for it, I do think we are closer to new material. In my view, this is the last of the archiving releases. We wait to see what comes next. Kate Bush is engaging with fans and is connected with her older music. This is a really positive thing, and we should all be…
THANKFUL for that!