Kate Bush - The Director's Cut

A message appeared a week ago on one of my music mailing lists about the existence of a new Kate Bush recording that can legally be played, until its release. Dutiful fan of Kate that I am (or was), I went to the site, played the album in its entirety and at the same time, recorded it to my hard disk, courtesy of some software which can record whatever the soundcard plays.

I listened on and off to the recording and eventually burnt it to a cd so that I could listen to it in the car. I played the cd the other night on my way to my MBA studies but after a few tracks I had to replace it with the Unthank sisters. There were technical problems with the burnt cd, but that wasn't the only reason: the songs simply don't interest me.

The album consists of eleven songs taken from Kate's sixth and seventh albums, "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes". I certainly bought the first on vinyl but probably didn't buy the second; not having a record player, I haven't heard these songs in nearly thirty years. This time around, Kate has revised the recordings: they have been thinned out and new vocals recorded. Whilst this makes the songs less bombastic than they used to be, they're still not the sort of thing which I would want to hear (that said, I like the opening "Flower of the mountain" and "Deeper understanding").

On the other hand, listening to the Unthanks was like coming home. Since having written about 'The Bairns', I've also bought its follow-up, "Here's the tender coming". This is somewhat less bizarre than its predecessor, primarily due to the lack of piano (the pianist had to leave the group for reasons that I have yet to ascertain, but the parting was amicable), but whilst becoming more mainstream, it loses some of its charm. There are even guitars and drums used (gasp), albeit occasionally, and the arrangements are generally more 'normal' as opposed to the more abstract arrangements of 'The Bairns'.

The centerpiece of the album belongs to a beautiful cover of Anne Brigg's "Living by the water", with a sumptuous and shimmering vocal by Becky Unthank (I notice that she always sings lead on the modern material) and exciting chord changes. There's even a trombone in the background, which at times sound incongruous and at other times sounds perfectly languid, invoking a warm summer's evening.

One thing which irks about both records is that in both cases, the penultimate track is anthemic ("Fareweel Regality" and "Here's the tender coming"), which would be a good way to close the record. Instead they chose to place something entirely different at the end, which spoils the mood created by the previous song.

It seems that I can't totally free myself of my musical likes and loves from the 70s (and some of them in retrospect have turned out to have been pearls); whilst most music from the current century leaves me cold, there are gems to be found.