Bruised by the battering administered to 1982's The Dreaming, Kate Bush retreated to the studio. Legendarily reported to have ballooned in weight, she emerged as beautiful as ever, bearing in her arms an epic as bonkers as its predecessor but with greater songs (and much bigger sales).
The first fruit was "Running Up That Hill", a mini-epic that—shorn of Kate's hoped-for title "A Deal With God" —became her biggest international hit. Finally a star of sorts in America, she proved an inspiration to Tori Amos and Prince. The latter was smitten with "Cloudbusting", one of the charming chess pieces that make up the Hounds half of the album. Its extraordinary video featured Donald Sutherland—star of Don't Look Now, one of the "watery movies" that inspired her (in another celluloid link, the title track opens with a quote from 1957's Night Of The Demon).
The cinematic second half (=side B) is The Ninth Wave. Inspired by a Tennyson poem—actually The Coming Of Arthur; not, as the sleeve claims, The Holy Grail—it veers from ballads to jigs (Hounds ... has few guitars, with Killing Joke bassist Youth making the rockingest contribution on "The Big Sky").The story finds our heroine alone in the water, lapsing into a nightmare, encountering a witchfinder, imagining a loved one at home, and being visited by her future self before being rescued.
The cover—photographed by her brother John, who also wrote the "Jig Of Life" poem—evokes both halves of the album, and completes a creation as fascinating as it is fabulous.
Hounds Of Love is the Kate Bush album you do not have to be a fan to adore.
TRACKS:
SIDE A: Hounds Of Love
Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) (4:56)
Hounds Of Love (3:01)
The Big Sky (4:35)
Mother Stands For Comfort (3:05)
Cloudbusting (5:07)
SIDE B: The Ninth Wave
And Dream Of Sheep (2:40)
Under Ice (2:22)
Waking The Witch (4:17)
Watching You Without Me (4:06)
Jig Of Life (4:03)
Hello Earth (6:10)
The Morning Fog (2:32)
FULL ALBUM:
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