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NPR website offers Director’s Cut first listen!

The US website for the NPR radio station is offering it’s listeners a first listen to the tracks from Director’s Cut. You can find the songs here. Quite a coup! Thanks to Donna for pointing this out.

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Australian review of Director’s Cut – “slinky and elegantly dreamy”

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The Guardian reviews Director’s Cut

23 Comments

  1. Radioorange

    Thanks for the link. It felt like cheating listening before Monday.

    • I feel the same way but its hard to resist the temptation…but I think I will so I can enjoy the album on my terms and where I want and not restricted on a computer

  2. dreamtimetk

    I have to say I have listened to it in the early hours this morning, when it started to be “advertised” and I thought it was a dream at first, I was still sleepy!! . The album is NOT only a re-visit but is a fresh and unique approach to previous known songs…. but they sound NEW and BETTER. Only Kate could have thought of such a genius idea to re-create those tracks and call the album Director’s cut!!! So far the tracks I am very impressed with are: Moments Of Pleasure, This Woman’s Work and Flower of the Mountain, The Red shoes, Lily (those stand out in my opinion)…… I love the new arrangements, her still POWERFUL voice, the different version of Rubberband girl which I found a total surprise. I have listened to it once, and I super-spoil myself far too much!! If the postal delivery does not come on time, I am well running to a local record store to buy a copy and I don’t mind at all to have a double copy of the same album after all. This is Kate Bush and this is a TOP treat and a 5***** album!!!! WHOOP-WHOOP

  3. Myke

    Amazing!

  4. I sat up until almost three in the morning and listened to the whole album twice. It really is amazing. “This Woman’s Work” and “Moments of Pleasure” are the standout tracks to me, followed by “The Red Shoes,” “Lily” and “Song of Solomon.”

  5. What a surprise this morning, and on NPR! Well, guess my day will have to wait for the next hour. Can’t get over how beautiful her voice is…

  6. Gio Willis

    Thank u Kate! Now I can say , after listening how I love this reinterpretation….. So intimate , delicate and acoustic…. Some tracks like Lily, Song of Solomon, Flower of the mountain and especially Rubberband Girl are GORGEOUS!!!!!

  7. rubberbandme

    Brilliant. Lush. Delicious! Rubberband Girl “reborn” makes me feel so happy. Kate at my local pub!

  8. John

    When Aerial was announced I wanted to be good and I held back on any chance to hear the songs before the album was released – even King of the Mountain! It made the release more magical and more of a surprise.

    This time round I’ve listened to some of the snippets, the single, and a couple of the songs via the radio 1 site. That’s enough. There’s only a few days left now. I can wait for the physical CD’s now. No more spoilers.

  9. I like, I want, I can’t wait………

  10. I came across this late last night. There’s nothing better than listening to Kate at 4:00am. Lily, Song of Solomon, Never Be Mine and Top of the City are my absolute favourites at the moment. The really interesting thing is, I find with each of Kate’s albums that the songs are really specific to each album that she creates. The fact that Kate was able to take certain tracks from two separate albums, rework them and give them a continuity so they all seem to come from one album to begin with is just amazing. They really do flow together seamlessly.

  11. another swede

    The album is just great but now i look more forward to all the new stuff.Thats gonna be realy great.

  12. vincent

    GENIUS!!!!!!!!! Am in love with Flower of the mountain. the Red Shoes, Lily & Rubberband Girl so far &

  13. vincent

    can’t wait til Monday now to get the real think & blast it loud from my speakers then the following week do it all again on the turntable when the vinyl is released. Love you Kate x

  14. Vibesinthesky

    If I was listening to this as a completely new collection of songs I would say unreservedly that this was an album to stand proudly alongside the other “classic” Kate Bush albums, The Dreaming, The Kick Inside, Hounds Of Love & Aerial. However, I’m listening to this as an album of re-imagined songs and you know what, I can say unreservedly that this is an album to join the pantheon of the other “classic” Kate Bush albums, The Dreaming, The Kick Inside, Hounds Of Love & Aerial. Absolutely faultless, in my humble opinion.

    A big thank you to npr for making this available.

  15. kennym

    Saw this post thins morning and I thought – No, you can wait until MOnday. Then I heard Miranda Richardson whisper “You’re so weak” in my ear and wholeheartedly agreeing with her I logged on the NPR site. Managed to do a bit of hijacking and got the stream onto my iPhone. Sounds great – although I’ll be buying the multi CD release on Monday – and much better through decent headphones than through laptop speakers. Been listening to it as I’ve been pottering around London today and it’s quite simply stunning. Very cohesive, very organic. Very mature. I’m loving Song of Solomon and strangely enough I’m totally in love with the totally bonkers new Rubberband Girl – please let it be the next single. However, Moments of Pleasure is the stand-out track. Devastatingly beautiful. I think it’s the most beautifully restrained track I’ve ever heard. There are no dramatics, just pure, raw emotion. Very hymn-like. Listen to the way she almost struggles to sing “I can hear my Mother saying” but then rushes the first “Every old sock meets an old shoe”. Can’t wait until Monday!

  16. Harry Horton

    A magnificent, fabulous creation. Rubberband Girl has unmistakable Rolling Stones influences throughout the song. The Stones beat and guitar rifts permeate the whole of the piece almost to the point of plagiristic extent. Even a bit of a Supertramp’s ‘Take the long Way home’ harmonica motif flickers in at the end of the song. Flower of the the Mountain has a more pronounced syncopated essence that gives a jaunty flow of rhythm and dream like texture that floats consistently in the background of the piece like a shimmering aura of the Irish mountainous regions. An ethereal quality dons the song in chunks of staccato like meter and beat. And now a very interesting first not only for Kate Bush but for the music world in general that has never been done before, Director’s Cut represents.That is, doing numerous real artisitic remakes of earlier songs. THis could be an unprecedented happening that could catch on with other artists in the future in the music world. And Kate Bush, at this time, is the progenitor of this unique approach to these types of remakes. I would not even mind seeing multiple more remakes of these songs. Like seven or eight versions of The Red Shoes. In anycase the songs are original and versatile in their revising, and just simply fabulous, splendid and well worth the listening

  17. Bless the internet,the wait for The Directors Cut to get to me in Tasmania is almost unbearable now.This was amazing to hear.Thankyou kateBushnews.com for the link.

  18. Harry Horton

    Continuing upon the wonderful new songs from Director’s Cut. Moments of Pleasure–The new 2011 version seems to pay hommage to New York City’s theatre and Broadway romantic pieces and their style of composition. Send in the Clowns, Frank Sinatra, Somewhere from West Side Story as samples, come to mind as comparible works with this romantic style, a style that embellishes Moments of Pleasure. Most interesting as a counterpoint to the Moments of Pleasure romantic style, Kate Bush uses a male Gregorian chant choir delivery in the first part of the song. These haunting monastic voices contribute a dreamlike ethereal quality suffusing the piece. And as such, enhances the romantic quality with a faint religious dimension to add along to the eternal essence that the romantic style also affords to the song. Two other pieces I like to listen to on the internet in sequence with Kate Bush’s Moments of Pleasure is Sarah Bareilles’ Gravity. Found on you tube, the lyric presentation on the video’s visuals, version, my favorite. Secondly, Crush by Dave Matthews. The New York bar scene comprised video of Crush is one favorite. On another side note–the video version of Supertramp Take the Long Way Home–donated by Jaffian-( Roger Hudson Spetember 13, 2007) has Antartic penguins, two of them in their visuals, roaming the ice laden continent. A video that could be a compatriot one to Rubberband girl, and reminds me of some of Kate Bush’s videos using two violins in her song: ‘Violin ,’as stage actors back in 1979, in the Christmas special at that time.

  19. douglas webster

    Beautiful, rich, thought provoking, deeply moving- Moments of Pleasure sent shivers down my spine- the humming instead of the chorus, the stripping back, less is more approach I thought has worked wonders with this song.Her voice is achingly rich in tone, despair and melancholy. LOVE IT KATE!!!! WELL WORTH THE SIX YEARS WAIT for this song alone!!! Anyone who has dealt with loss will find this very comforting. I would love you to do a whole album just voice and piano! Other stand out tracks for me are Never Be Mine- love the soulful mourning sound of this and the subtle changes and also This Woman’s Work – again I love the way you have reworked the track and love the icy sounding choir- harks back to Under Ice….. The new Moments Of Pleasure has become in my opinion- the best thing Kate has yet recorded- hope her new stuff follows in this vein! THANKS FOR SHARING IT WITH US! XXXXX

  20. noonoo

    Caved in. Couldn’t resist; Rubberband girl is awesome, I’m with you on that kennym, lets have some airtime for that one!

  21. Harry Horton

    With May 16 2011 coming and gone, the Directors Cut songs are now in full swing across the internet. A Womans Work once again contributes to the diverse strains and approaches of her music. Tubular bells open up the song with their initial sparse scattering giving the introduction of the song an ephemeral texture on a faint yet growing basis. Kate Bush’s voice appear, forlorn and with a straying quality that communicates almost a cry in the wilderness state of being in her singing. THe 2:37 mark brings the tubular bells into a more aggregate cluster along with slightly soaring voices that further enhances the otherworldly essence of the musical piece. The 4:07 mark continues the growing and strengthening embellishment of the spiritual world character, more enhancement of the bells and synthesizer like notes of continual streamings appear, that run along with her mournful strain’s soundings of her singing; and it all comes together around the 4:55 mark and the various constituents of the song keeps building into a graduating crescendo right before the 6:00 minute mark. Thus, at such point in time the musical fabric of the song drops off, and ends in a solitary feel of simplicity dominated by Kate Bush’s singular present voice for the most part at this end point. A Womans Work has a consistent flow of its melodic line, returning at the end with an established conclusion, sudden and final. A real neat transiting of intensities throughout the piece evenly worked together in sequence. And also a unique essence to the song contrasting with the other album piece’s natures; another great quality of kate Bush’s creativity preventing the album from falling into monotonous repeats of the same song format from piece to piece, a pitfall some other albums fall prey to.

  22. Harry Horton

    The Red Shoes, probably my favourite on the whole album, and Kate Bush keeps fairly close to the original version in tempo and melodic flow. THough there are some interesting diversions from the original piece. The high pitched stringed instrumentation takes off in a frenzied pace at the song’s beginning. ANd kate Bush’s voice appears around the 00:17 mark. The reverberative echo quality that sounds throughout the piece emeshed as it is within the pulsating flowing syncopated jig movement , constitutes as such the manner of rhythm that predominates in the piece. 00:48 more enhanced embellishment occurs at this point. At the 1:06 mark dream like imagery of singing voices give the echoing in and out quality a perennial texture, expanding and lengthening the reverberative echo quality into different areas. 1:16 the flutes appear and soon followed at 1:32 mark – a juice harp like instrument deepens the melodic texture, in once again as such conjuring up a musical environ where the reverberative echo quality expands outwards like ripples from a thrown pebble in a pond, that is expanding into more sounding, ‘throbbing almost like manner’ keeping the fading distance in the sights of its harmony. 2:33 mark Kate Bush’s voice carries the echoing like quality, with more enhancement, and at the 3:06 mark multiple voices continue the echoing like stream of notes throughout the piece. THe high energetic pace and overall comrpisement of the piece is what makes it attractive melodically and Irish in its substance to a large degree.

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