Shorn of all embellishment, the hauntingly beautiful ‘And Dream Of Sheep’ is simply her plangent voice and piano, and the odd pluck of acoustic guitar. “But it’s the sheer variety of moods, and the incredible use of melody that really makes ‘Hounds Of Love’ so profoundly emotional and affecting. Tracks like ‘Waking The Witch’ saw found sounds and voices culled from films becoming a cinematic collage, while on ‘Running Up That Hill’, Bush anticipated the phenomenon of Balearic dance music, becoming a sort of early text for bearded dance nerds. This modernity mixed with more traditional folk elements, as on the Georgian choral voices of ‘Hello Earth’ and Irish folk fiddles of ‘Jig Of Life’ (an Irish traditional tune discovered by her brother Paddy Bush). As Keith Cameron noted in his recent feature for Mojo Magazine, ‘the massive crossover success of 1985’s Hounds Of Love’shifted the artist/record company power dynamic conclusively in Bush’s favour.’ “Musically, it was cutting edge, employing the most state-of-the-art studio technology, a mixture of synths, Linn drum machines and a hugely innovative use of the Fairlight CMI sampler, something that few others had thought about employing in 1985. It was on this album that Kate, an artist who had struggled to contain her wilful genius in constricting pop songs, was able to so masterfully balance a universal sensibility and her more experimental whims, and it resulted in her most successful album, a mega hit in 1985 and today one of popular music’s most evergreen classics, No.1 in the UK (now double platinum) and a smash in the States at the time of release. “‘Hounds Of Love’ is an extraordinary record in many ways. The next natural step was to discover ‘Hounds Of Love’, which is why we’re here. When I got into her proper, it was an obsession with the melodies, sounds and themes of ‘Cloudbusting’ and ‘Running Up That Hill’. I’d heard the big singles on the radio as a child, and been alternately fascinated and even slightly frightened by their seemingly unhinged nature and otherworldiness.
Or perhaps she came to me? My wife bought me a best of in the early 2000s, ‘The Whole Story’, and I gradually became obsessed. In Ben’s words “’It’s in the trees! It’s coming!”’ Few are quite prepared for their ‘Hounds Of Love’ epiphany. And in case you are wondering, there are a lot of people involved in dance music who love Kate Bush. Not sure if the 1st version I uploaded was deleted but it does not appear on my uploaded videos page.anyway I uploaded another version so enjoy:).īen Murphy is the editor of DJ Magazine and he presented Kate Bush “Hounds of Love” for Classic Album Sundays at the Vintage Festival as part of our Best British Albums of All-Time series.