FEATURE:
A Sixth Sense
Kate Bush’s The Sensual World at Thirty-Six
__________
THE sixth album…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
from Kate Bush, The Sensual World, turns thirty-six on 16th October. Even though it is not a big anniversary, I didn’t want to let the occasion pass by. I am going to bring in a promotional interview from 1989. I might repeat some information used in previous anniversary features. I want to start out by bringing in the Kate Bush Encyclopedia and a bit of background about the 1989 album. One that followed the huge commercial success, Hounds of Love. It was a very different album to that. Many do not rate The Sensual World as highly, though I feel like it deserves more acclaim and scrutiny:
“As with Hounds of Love, the album was recorded mainly in Kate’s home studio, after it was upgraded, adding an SSL console. Kate said she felt “overwhelmed by the amount of equipment aroud me. It was quite stifling, and I made a conscious effort to move away from that, and treat the song as the song.”
Del Palmer was her principal engineer, and they often worked together on the new album, with Haydn Bertall appearing now and again. Three tracks on the album feature backing vocals by the Trio Bulgarka. The title track was inspired by James Joyce’s book Ulysses, specifically the closing passage of the novel by Molly Bloom. When the estate refused the use of that text, Kate wrote her own which echos the original passage, but adds a dimension: ‘Stepping out of the page / into the sensual world‘”.
Other people have said to me that they think this album is very dark, although for me I think it’s my happiest album really. I find some of the tracks quite funny where other people say they find them scary. Although I have a dark sense of humour, maybe it is a subconscious thing that just goes into my music, because I think when I was writing this album that was perhaps something I was feeling a little – a sense of being a bit scared. Maybe it comes out in the music. I do think it’s a very big self- therapy thing now – the more I work on an album the more I think it’s almost a process for me to try and heal myself, have a look at myself. Do you know what I mean? Actually a very selfish thing in a way, but I think art is. I do think what artistic people are trying to do is work through their problems through their art – look at themselves, confront all these things. (…) It’s not that the album is written about me, not that it is autobiographical, but it is the most direct process I’ve used for an album.
It’s in my own studio and I had a lot of time so as not to be under pressure by outside forces. I’ve recorded the whole album with Del so it’s just myself and Del in a very close relationship working together very intensely and it was hard for me to write this album. To actually write the songs was very difficult, and for the first time really, I went through a patch where I just couldn’t write – I didn’t know what I wanted to say. (…) Everything seemed like rubbish – you know? It seemed to have no meaning whatsoever. Somehow I managed to get a sense of some meaningfulness, and that’s why (…) to me now, albums are perhaps a way of helping myself, but maybe helping other people too. To work through my problems maybe will help other people too. To work through my problems maybe will help other people to work through their problems. Maybe the meaningfulness of art is that once you’ve got over your selfish work within it, you can give it to other people and hopefully it might at least make them smile or something.
Roger Scott, Interview. Radio 1 (UK), 14 October 1989
I think this album for me, unlike the last album, say, Hounds of Love, where I saw that as two sides – one side being conceptual – this album is very much like short stories for me. Ten short stories that are just saying something different in each one and it was a bit like trying to paint the pictures accordingly. Each song has a different personality and so they each a need little bit of something here, a little bit of that there – just like people, you know, some people you can’t walk up to because you know they’re a bit edgy first thing in the morning. So you have to come up sideways to them, you know, and it’s kind of like how the songs are too. They have their own little personalities, and if it doesn’t want you to do it, it won’t let you.
Before getting to a couple of features, I want to bring in a large portion of this Melody Maker interview that Kate Bush had with Steve Sutherland that was published on 21sdt October, 1989. Perhaps Bush didn’t give as many interviews as she did for Hounds of Love, though there were quite a few in 1989. It was a busy time for her. Following this album, Bush would leave it four years before releasing her seventh studio album – the brilliant The Red Shoes:
“The Sensual World is completely self-absorbed in its own erogenous pleasure, while This Woman's Work, plaintively, over stark acoustic piano, reviews the man's side of the relationship and, really, pities him.
"John Hughes, the American director, was doing a film called She's Having a Baby --a great film, very nice and comic. And he had this scene which he wanted me to write a song for where it gets very heavy. The film's about this guy who gets married and he likes being a kid, really--very much up in the clouds--and she gets pregnant and they go into hospital, and she's rushed off becuase the baby's in the breach position.
"And suddenly there he is, just left in the waiting room by himself. It's probably the first time in his life he's had to grow up. It's a lovely piece of film, where he's looking back on their times together--there are scenes where they're decorating their flat, going for walks and things--and it was very much just a matter of telling the story in words--how, at times like that, you tend to go into something akin to guilt mode and you think of all the things you should have done and you just didn't."
I think men are bigger babies than women. I don't think we grow up so fast.
"Maybe men can avoid more situations than women in terms of facing things. I guess there are things for women that are different and they tend to deal with life situations rather than perhaps the business world or whatever. God, this sounds so sexist..."
Not at all. Women give birth, they are physically part of the creative process. It's as if their orgasm grows and bears fruit, whereas men fuck and that's it--it's a release, something we get rid of rather than something we gain. Then it all builds up again, and we can't handle it. I think women are far stronger emotionally. Men can't cope with emotions. We get frustrated and aggressive and destructive because we can't express ourselves, whereas women seem to embody their feelings better. Something positive grows from them..
"Yes, I think you're right. It's very hard on all of us but, yet, through the process of giving birth, I'm sure women are much stronger than men, and it's incredibly hard on them that they should not be able to show their emotions when actually it's okay to be weak."
We men are confused. The trouble with the invention of the notion of sexism and the paranoia surrounding it is that the only way we can deal with it is based on a fallacy. We think that, just because women should quite rightly have equal rights and equal opportunities, the sexes are the same. But we're not--women are aliens to us, we don't understand you at all. You speak a different language altogether. We're different creatures entirely.
"Absolutely, I'm with you 100 per cent. I couldn't agree more. I think it's awful what's happening to people's sense of their own sexuality. Women are made to feel awkward about expressing themselves as women in a man's world, so, subconsciously, a lot of the time, they're behaving like men because they don't know how strong they're supposed to be. Then again, women's lib has left men in a lot of areas where they don't know how to behave in case they get called sexist, a pig, or whatever.
"We are different, and we should be helping each other. Unfortunately there was such a lot of shit to get through that it was a battle, but I don't think it need be."
The album seems to be saying, "If you find yourself in a tricky situation, follow your instincts--just behave the way if feels right and at least you're being true to yourself, irrespective of the outcome."
"Yes, absolutely...And what an incredibly difficult thing to apply to life. I think there are some very good things going on to help us through. I must say, for me, the comdy in this country has been really educational. You know, Ben Elton and The Comic Strip--all those people you can't really call alternative comedians anymore because they've become mainstream. I think they've really done a lot to stop it being fashionable to be humorous with sexist overtones.
"It used to be very hip to make fun of women. Old comedy was all about treating women as a threat and, therefore, making fun of them. And I think they've really changed a lot of that. They've done so much for men and women because now, in most circles, among people our age, if you make a sexist joke, it's really considered tasteless. I think that's a fantastic step forward. And to see people like Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders out there doing comedy being women as women is brilliant.
Do you listen to much pop music?
"Not much when I'm making albums. In the evenings I probably watch a film or comedies or something visual to take me away from my ears. But, in between albums, yeah--there's some great stuff. Johnny Lydon's new album is just great, and I heard some tracks off the new Jeff Beck album and they were great, too. I think there's been some good, good music out there. Everyone in the music industry's been wearing black for, what, the last four years? Well, I think everyone's in mourning for good music. It's a show of mourning--'Look, here we are, where's the music?' And there's little snatches now, and that's exciting."
Are you hypersensitive to music? I mean, just because you make music that moves other people, that doesn't necessarily mean that music moves you, does it?
"God, I'd love to think that my music could move people, because it doesn't happen to me often, but, when it has, it's a lovely experience. The Bulgarians did it to me, and Nigel Kennedy (the young classical violinist who also plays on the album) sometimes makes me cry."
There are so many musical cliches, and you're breaking them down. Using Davey Spillane's Uillean pipes and Dave Gilmour's guitar and the Trio, you've succeeded in creating a new, uncategorisable sort of music which isn't anything, it's just music. I think that's important, because it makes people open their ears to stuff. It enriches their lives.
"Well, that's lovely. What a really nice thing to say. Um...I think everything seems too easy to categorise, and...I think that's just such a lovely thing to say..."
It's like what you were saying about relationships--you've done it with music. You've given it time to grow, to see if it's compatible. And it sounds natural, not cosmetic.
"Well, I think that's fantastic...that's just such a nice thing to say, that's really great...wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Because I think this is really what music is--a continual process of people experimenting, taking this and that and putting them together: all these experimental marriages. And when they work, I think that's such an important step, because then they've created a new music of a sort which then goes on to evolve.
"And, if it doesn't work, that's absolutely fine, too, because that shows you what doesn't work. So, if you feel this is a natural union, that's really good. I suppose I'd like to think that, as long as I really care about making music, there will always be people out there who want to hear music that is cared for."
The hour's up and Kate thanks me for saying such lovely things about her album. I thank her for making such a great album, and she thanks me for thanking her, and says I have a lovely energy, and...shucks...We blush a bit and shake hands, and I shuffle out of the room, out of her life, elated and embarrassed”.
I think I will end with a positive review but get to a feature first. I wanted to include a spread of information that is both insightful, personal and you might not have read. I am trying not to repeat what I have published before. Things changed between Hounds of Love and The Sensual World. Kate Bush turned thirty and there was a shift in musical tone and palette. The Quietus when they wrote about The Sensual World for its thirtieth anniversary in 2019, explored how it is an autumnal album. In terms of the sensations, sonics and songs. Maybe a slightly darker or gentler album than Hounds of Love with all its bursts of summer:
“The Sensual World, then, with its poetic allusions to Bonfire Night and the harvest, is her autumnal album. If Hounds Of Love, with its percussive and effect-heavy arrangements, is a budding fruit, The Sensual World is its ripened, fully mature successor. Where the drums were booming they are now accentual, where the synths were pulsating and fulsome with Fairlight wizardry they are now ambient and warmly textured. The rich instrumentation reflects the mood; Kate had flirted with Celtic arrangements on songs like ‘Night Of The Swallow’ from 1982’s The Dreaming and parts of Hounds Of Love (most notably ‘Jig Of Life’), but the Uilleann pipes of Davey Spillane and the various Celtic instruments played by her brother Paddy and by Alan Stivell (arranged by Bill Whelan) are woven into the very fabric of The Sensual World.
Meanwhile, the titanic, full-throated vocals of the Trio Bulgarka (an inspired choice of personnel) add a wise spirit to the music. The palette of bells and pipes, the imagery of setting fire to cornfields, synths that are somehow removed yet oddly comforting – it all adds up to a striking sound world perfectly evocative of this particular time of year.
Everything about The Sensual World exudes autumnal beauty – from the elegant arrangements to its dusky, monochromatic cover portrait of a wide-eyed Kate Bush; from the album title’s rusty-leaf text to the bells that fade in like a tender alarm call on a crisp morning. Her voice, an instrument that bloomed on The Dreaming and Hounds Of Love, is exquisite throughout, alternately keening and soft, throaty and forceful.
Gone is the light joy of summer, and the freshness of spring, but in its stead something more mature, more realised – perhaps still bristling with internal conflict, but with a newly-attained level of perspective. It is an album that suggests both the ending of childhood and the beginning of adulthood ("let’s face it, you’ve got to start growing up when you’re 30") and the bizarre hinterland between the two – the tension between cutting cords ("just put your feet down child, cos you’re all grown up now") and yearning for parental security ("reaching out for mama"), not to mention the prospect of parenthood of your own ("now starts the craft of the father").
‘The Sensual World’ itself sets out the album’s autumnal stall immediately – soft, pealing bells give way to an arrangement that incorporates pipes, warm synth washes, and an insistent drum pattern; its accompanying video, following the singer through a forest of crimson leaves, is as seamless a supplement as could be. She told International Musician in 1989 how she had "had this idea for about two years to use the words from Molly Bloom’s speech at the end of [James Joyce’s] Ulysses, which I think is the most superb piece of writing ever, to a piece of music. So Del [Palmer] had done a Fairlight pattern, and I’d done a DX riff over the top of it, and I was listening to it at home, and the words fitted absolutely perfectly. I thought, ‘God this is just ridiculous, just how well it’s come together.’"
The Sensual World is like an orchard, each song a ripened fruit. It has an insular atmosphere in keeping with her home studio set-up, and the music perfectly matches the mood evoked in the lyrics. It is the sound of Kate Bush more comfortable in her own skin, facing the complications of life. It looks forward while somehow looking back. It may be an album that personifies Molly Bloom and references Hitler, but it is also a deeply personal, sensual utopia. "This is definitely my most personal, honest album," she told Q. "And I think it’s my most feminine album, in that I feel maybe I’m not trying to prove something in terms of a woman in a man’s world… On The Dreaming and Hounds Of Love, particularly from a production standpoint, I wanted to get a lot more weight and power, which I felt was a very male attitude. In some cases it worked very well, but… perhaps this time I felt braver as a woman, not trying to do the things that men do in music”.
For anyone who does not own The Sensual World, I would urge you to buy a copy. Such a remarkable album, I want to come back to it ahead of its thirty-sixth anniversary on 16th October. I am going to end by sourcing from a Pitchfork review that was published in 2019. I am going to round up in a minute. However, Pitchfork note how Kate Bush is completely in control for her sixth studio album. Rather than the songs being fanciful or like fairytales, they are more like stories or vignettes:
“But she’d never sounded more grounded than she did on these 10 songs, most of which are about regular people in regular messes, not disturbed governesses, paranoid Russian wives or terrified fetuses. It was, she said, her most honest, personal album, and its stories play out like intimate vignettes rather than fantastical fairy tales. Unlike the otherworldly synth-pop-prog she pioneered on 1985’s Hounds of Love, she used her beloved Fairlight CMI to produce lusher, mellow textures, complemented by the warm, earthy thrum of Irish folk instruments and the pretty violins and violas of England’s classical bad boy, Nigel Kennedy. Even the album’s artwork depicted a less playful, more serious Bush than the one who’d fondled Harry Houdini on 1982’s The Dreaming and cuddled dogs on Hounds of Love.
There’s no Hounds-style grand narrative thread on The Sensual World. Bush likened it to a volume of short stories, with its subjects frequently wrestling with who they were, who they are, and who they want to be. She was able to pour some of her own frustrations into these knotty tussles: She found it more difficult than ever to write songs, couldn’t work out what she wanted them to say, and hit roadblock after roadblock. The 12 months she spent pestering Joyce’s grandson were surpassed by the maddening two years she spent on “Love and Anger,” which, fittingly, finds her tormented by an old trauma she can’t bring herself to talk about. But by the end, she banishes the evil spirits by leading her band in something that sounds like a raucous exorcism, chanting, “Don’t ever think you can’t change the past and the future” over squalling guitars.
Even its most surreal songs are rooted in self-examination. “Heads We’re Dancing” seems like a dark joke—a young girl is charmed on to the dancefloor by a man she later learns is Adolf Hitler—but poses a troubling question: What does it say about you, if you couldn’t see through the devil’s disguise? Its discordant, skronky rhythms make it feel like a formal ball taking place in a fever dream, and Bush’s voice grows increasingly panicky as she realizes how badly she’s been duped. As far-fetched as its premise was, its inspiration lay close to home: A family friend had told Bush how shaken they’d been after they’d taken a shine to a dashing stranger at a dinner party, only to find out they’d been chatting to Robert Oppenheimer.
It’s more fanciful than most of The Sensual World’s little secrets. To hear someone recall formative childhood truths (the lush grandeur of “Reaching Out”) and lingering romantic pipedreams (the longing of “Never Be Mine”) is like being given a reel of their memory tapes and discovering what makes them tick. On “The Fog,” she’s paralyzed by fear until she remembers the childhood swimming lessons her father gave her, his voice cutting through the misty harps like an old ghost. Relationships on the album can be sticky and thorny. “Between a Man and a Woman” is half-dangerous and half-sultry, its snaking rhythms mirroring the round-in-circles squabbling of a couple. When a third party tries to interfere, they’re told to back off. This time, unlike on “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” there’s no point wishing for a helping hand from God.
But if there are no miracles, there are at least songs that sound like them. For “Rocket’s Tail,” Bush enlisted the help of Trio Bulgarka, who she fell in love with after hearing them on a tape Paddy gave her. The three Bulgarian women didn’t speak English and had no idea what they were singing about, but it didn’t matter. They sound more like mystics during its a capella first half, and when it eventually blows up into a glammy stomper with Dave Gilmour’s electric guitar caterwauling like a Catherine wheel, their vocals still come out on top: cackling like gleeful witches, whooping like they’re watching sparks explode in the night sky. Its weird, wonderful magic offered a simple message: Life is short, so enjoy moments of pleasure before they fizzle out”.
On 16th October, it will be thirty-six years since Kate Bush released The Sensual World. Many fans and critics would have wanted or expected an album closer in feel to Hounds of Love. However, Kate Bush delivered something much more interesting and original. The late-1980s was defined by a rise in golden Hip-Hop and artists like Janet Jackson, Pixies, Soul II Soul and The Stone Roses. Nothing quite like Kate Bush. Very few female artists making the sounds we hear on The Sensual World. As a result, it took some critics a while to adjust, though there was a lot of love and positivity. In rankings, The Sensual World does well. This 2023 ranking put it in third (out of ten). This 2019 feature also placed it third. This 2022 list put The Sensual World fourth. So it is revered and seen as one of Kate Bush’s best albums. That said, many people do not talk about The Sensual World and go deep with it. I hope that changes. This brilliant album, turning thirty-six on 16th October, is an…
AUTUMNAL masterpiece.