Hello, Aetix will get a definite female feel the coming weeks after the andronegy of Annie Lennox last week, it's time for the ultra feminine star of the eighties, the heroine for millions of girls and women, my sister was totally besotted with her (and still is). She's managed to take many of her fans with her into adulthood and released another masterpiece just 16 months ago. She took control of her work and production age just 25 and proved she didn't need the boyz, as such she's proven to be a practical feminist as well. And for the men there were her gorgeous looks and a voice that could touch. She certainly did that for me.
Today's artist is a soprano with a range going from B2 to D7 ("The Big Sky"). Her music is eclectic, varying styles even within an album. Her songs span genres as diverse as rock, pop, alternative and art rock. Even in her earliest works where the piano was a primary instrument, she wove together many diverse influences, melding classical music, rock, and a wide range of ethnic and folk sources, and this has continued throughout her career...... N'Joy
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When Kate Bush materialized with a wail, a waft of huge hair and the startling melodrama of her first single, Wuthering Heights, the teenage daughter of a doctor from Kent could have hardly made a bigger or odder impression against a backdrop of angry young men in punk bands.
Bush came from an artistic background; her mother was a former Irish folk dancer, her father was an accomplished pianist, her brother Paddy worked as a musical instrument maker, and John was a poet and photographer. Both brothers were involved in the local folk music scene. Her family's musical influence inspired the young Kate to teach herself to play the piano at age 11. She soon began writing her own tunes and eventually added lyrics to them. At school, she was encouraged to take violin lessons, but the piano was her passion.
Recieving a leg up by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Bush was just 16 when she signed a £5,000 deal with EMI.For the first two years of her contract, Bush spent more time on schoolwork than making an album. The money enabled her to take interpretive dance classes. Bush also wrote and made demos of close to 200 songs, a few of which today can be found on bootleg recordings and are known as the Phoenix Recordings . Her debut album, The Kick Inside, was released early in 1978 and featured songs she had written during the previous several years, including her début single, the high-pitched and ethereal Wuthering Heights which became an international hit. In fact Kate became the first woman to reach number one in the UK charts with a self-penned song. The opening track starting off with a whale sound before moving onto/into a sensual tale of sexual discovery ( tune me in on your saxophone..oops), yes this little girl, 5ft 3" 19 years old wasn't going to shy away..
Kate Bush became an overnight success and EMI, that had waited previously, wanted to cash in some more and pushed her to come up with a follow up album and a live tour. This tour, where Bush became the first singer to use a wireless headset radio microphone on stage, allowing her to incorporate extensive dance routines, came about spring 79 and was too be the first and last she's ever done. The fall 78 follow up album, Lionheart, obviously wasn't as ripened as her debut, that said it was more homogenous, and even if perfectionist Kate uttered dissatisfaction with how it all came about, Lionheart still proved The Kick Inside wasn't a fluke.
Never for Ever (80) saw her leaving the constraints of live-reproduction and persue a more diverse range of styles, by now her name drew enough fans to see the album become the first (again) female having a no 1 album in the UK. September 1982 saw the release of The Dreaming, the first album she produced totally by herself. Kate experimented with production techniques, creating an album that features a diverse blend of musical styles and is known for its near-exhaustive usage of the Fairlight CMI. Overproduced said the lads of the UK press, just great said the US press .
85 saw the release of her 'piece de resistance' Hounds of Love a two faced album with one commercial side containing the singles (and hits), the other a concept side based on a poem by Tennyson 'The Ninth Wave'. The album kind off settled the score with the lads and is still found in the best ever lists.
The increasingly personal tone of her writing continued on 1989's The Sensual World, with songs about unexpressed and unrequited love, drawing its inspiration from James Joyce's novel Ulysses and William Blake's poetry. The album was very succesful in the States. The Red Shoes was released in November 1993. (film by Michael Powell based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen ) concerns a dancer, possessed by her art, who cannot shake off the eponymous shoes and find peace. The album sold more than three million copies worldwide.
The plan was to take the songs out on the road, and so Bush deliberately aimed for a live-band feel, with less of the studio trickery that had typified her last three albums and that would be difficult to recreate on stage. But like her first tour when her lighting man died, this time her mother Hannah passed away as did the director Michael Powell, add to that the break up with her saxophone (nudge) Del Palmer and well no tour. No nothing for 12 years before she came back with a double album- "Aeriel". In the meantime she found a new love with whom she has a young son, Albert, and basicly sucessfully tried to live a normal domestic life. Obviously expectations were high and the lads had venom at hand but she produced another great work.
On 16 May 2011, Bush released the album Director's Cut. The album, which Bush has described as an entirely new project rather than a collection of mere remixes, contains 11 tracks of substantially reworked material from her earlier albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, all of which have been recorded using analogue, rather than digital, equipment to create "a warmer sound". All the tracks have new lead vocals, new drums, and radically reworked instrumentation.
Bush's next studio album, 50 Words for Snow, was released on 21 November 2011. The album contains seven new songs "set against a backdrop of falling snow," with a total running time of 65 minutes. The album's songs are built around Bush's quietly jazzy piano and Steve Gadd's drums, and utilise both sung and spoken word vocals in what Classic Rock's Stephen Dalton calls "a...supple and experimental affair, with a comtemporary chamber pop sound grounded in crisp piano, minimal percussion and light-touch electronics...billowing jazz-rock soundscapes, interwoven with fragmentary narratives delivered in a range of voices from shrill to Laurie Anderson-style cooing.
Bush turned down an invitation by the organizers of the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony to perform at the event. Instead a recording of a new remix of her 1985 hit "Running Up that Hill" was played at the end of the ceremony.
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Never for Ever has Kate Bush sounding vocally stable and more confident, taking what she had put into her debut single "Wuthering Heights" from 1978 and administering those facets into most of the album's content. Never for Ever went to number one in the U.K., on the strength of three singles that made her country's Top 20. Both "Breathing" and "Army Dreamers" went to number 16, while "Babooshka" was her first Top Five single since "Wuthering Heights." Bush's dramatics and theatrical approach to singing begin to solidify on Never for Ever, and her style brandishes avid seriousness without sounding flighty or absurd. "Breathing," about the repercussions of nuclear war, conveys enough passion and vocal curvatures to make her concern sound convincing, while "Army Dreamers" bounces her voice up and down without getting out of hand. "Babooshka"'s motherly charm and flexible chorus make it one of her best tracks, proving that she can make the simplest of lyrics work for her through her tailored vocal acrobatics. The rest of the album isn't quite as firm as her singles, but they all sport a more appeasing and accustomed sound than some of her past works, and she does manage to keep her identity and characteristics intact. Never for Ever was the first Kate Bush album to feature synthesisers and drum machines, in particular the Fairlight CMI, to which she was introduced when providing backing vocals on Peter Gabriel's eponymous third album in early 1980. It was her first record to reach the top position in the UK album charts, also making her the first female British artist to achieve that status, and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at the top.
Kate Bush - Never For Ever (flac 209mb)
01 Babooshka 3:20
02 Delius (Song Of Summer) 2:51
03 Blow Away (For Bill) 3:34
04 All We Ever Look For 3:48
05 Egypt 4:12
06 The Wedding List 4:15
07 Violin 3:15
08 The Infant Kiss 2:50
09 Night Scented Stock 0:51
10 Army Dreamers 2:58
11 Breathing 5:29
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This album marked her breakthrough into the American charts, and yielded a set of dazzling videos as well as an enviable body of hits, spearheaded by "Running Up That Hill," her biggest single since "Wuthering Heights." Strangely enough, Hounds of Love was no less complicated in its structure, imagery, than The Dreaming, which had been roundly criticized for being too ambitious and complex. But Hounds of Love was more carefully crafted as a pop record, and it abounded in memorable melodies and arrangements, the latter reflecting idioms ranging from orchestrated progressive pop to high-wattage traditional folk; and at the center of it all was Bush in the best album-length vocal performance of her career, extending her range and also drawing expressiveness from deep inside of herself. Hounds of Love is actually a two-part album (the two sides of the original LP release being the now-lost natural dividing line), consisting of the suites "Hounds of Love" and "The Ninth Wave." The former is steeped in lyrical and sonic sensuality that tends to wash over the listener, while the latter takes its name from Tennyson's poem, "Idylls of the King", about the legendary King Arthur's reign, and is seven interconnecting songs joined in one continuous piece of music about the experiences of birth and rebirth. If this sounds like heady stuff, it could be, but Bush never lets the material get too far from its pop trappings and purpose. In some respects, this was also Bush's first fully realized album, done completely on her own terms, made entirely at her own 48-track home studio, to her schedule and preferences, and delivered whole to EMI as a finished work; that history is important, helping to explain the sheer presence of the album's most striking element -- the spirit of experimentation at every turn, in the little details of the sound. That vastly divergent grasp, from the minutiae of each song to the broad sweeping arc of the two suites, all heavily ornamented with layered instrumentation, makes this record wonderfully overpowering as a piece of pop music.
Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love ( flac 438mb)
Hounds Of Love
01 Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) 5:00
02 Hounds Of Love 3:02
03 The Big Sky 4:40
04 Mother Stands For Comfort 3:08
05 Cloudbusting 5:09
06 And Dream Of Sheep 2:45
The Ninth Wave
07 Under Ice 2:22
08 Waking The Witch 4:17
09 Watching You Without Me 4:05
10 Jig Of Life 4:16
11 Hello Earth 5:59
12 The Morning Fog 2:37
Bonus Tracks
13 The Big Sky (Meteorological Mix) 7:44
14 Running Up That Hill (12" Mix) 5:45
15 Be Kind To My Mistakes 3:00
16 Under The Ivy 2:08
17 Burning Bridge 4:38
18 My Lagan Love 2:30
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The Anthology box set contains two prized discs of rare material, live tracks, and singles b-sides never available on disc before (or since to my knowledge.) The quality of the extra material is very good but not overwhelming, suggesting that Bush made wise decisions on which tracks to include on actual albums, and which to shelve.
"My Lagan Love" is a beautiful a capella vocal with lyrics written by her brother John, to an Irish traditional song. "Under the Ivy" is a gorgeous piano ballad which came from the "Running Up That Hill" single. These are such sad sounding song but really lovely. On the flip side there is the poppy single "Passing Through Air" which apparently dates all the way back to 1973. "December Will Be Magic Again" is Kate's version of a winter/Christmas ode, delightful, light-hearted fare from her most inspired period. There is the Donovan song "Lord of the Reedy River" recorded in 1981 which finds a breathy, longing Kate vocal to trippy back vocal effects and some kind of woodwinds or keys simulating them. Very mysterious and cool. There is also a French language version of "The Infant Kiss." Most of this early stuff is really sublime ear candy,
and nearly essential for the a Bush fan.
Kate Bush - This Woman's Work I (flac 247mb)
01 The Empty Bullring 2:16
02 Ran Tan Waltz 2:41
03 Passing Through Air 2:05
04 December Will Be Magic Again 4:51
05 Warm And Soothing 2:43
06 Lord Of The Reedy River 2:42
07 Ne T'en Fui Pas 2:33
08 Un Baiser D'Enfant 3:02
09 Under The Ivy 2:10
10 Burning Bridge 4:42
11 My Lagan Love 2:30
12 The Handsome Cabin Boy 3:12
13 Not This Time 3:40
14 Walk Straight Down The Middle 3:50
15 Be Kind To My Mistakes 3:03
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Kate Bush - This Woman's Work II (flac 388mb)
01 I'm Still Waiting 4:28
02 Ken 3:49
03 One Last Look Around The House Before We Go... 1:04
04 Wuthering Heights (New Vocal) 4:58
05 Experiment IV 4:22
06 Them Heavy People (Live) 4:08
07 Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake (Live) 3:39
08 James And The Cold Gun (Live) 6:25
09 L'amour Looks Something Like You (Live) 2:44
10 Running Up That Hill 5:46
11 Cloudbusting (The Organon Mix) 6:33
12 Hounds Of Love (Alternative) 3:48
13 The Big Sky (Meteorological Mix) 7:45
14 Experiment IV (12" Mix) 6:37
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elsewhere (Rhotation 05)re-rip
Kate Bush - The Kick Inside (78 ^ 251mb)
Kate Bush - Lionheart (^ 194mb)
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Could you please re-up Kate Bush in FLAC please?
ReplyDeleteMuch appreciated.
Keep up the good work.
Could you re-up please? Thanks as always Rho.
ReplyDelete