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“A complete delight”: Howl

Honor Clement-Hayes at Howl:

As one of Stephen’s 10 squillion Twitter followers, I felt like I’d got the inside scoop when he announced that he was recording with Kate Bush. I wasn’t, obviously. But I felt like I’d discovered an incredible secret. That’s kind of how I feel when I listen to this album. It’s like entering someone’s head when they aren’t looking and swimming around in their thoughts. Kate’s music has always felt very close and intimate, like she’s whispering in your ear, singing just for you … She’s over 50 now, but THAT VOICE is still childlike and playful and it’s just a complete delight to hear in this time of Beiber and Chipmunk and all the other thousand dead-faced clones. Robber’s Veil. Ankle Breaker. Simmer Glisten. Deep and Hidden. Bad for Trains. Vanishing World. Lose yourself in this album for a while, and leave it feeling refreshed and separated from the loud reality of life.”

“Beautiful despite mischievously close to self-parody”: Cultural Dessert

Robun Simpson in his Cultural Dessert:

Those of us who grew up fascinated by Kate Bush’s voice would probably be happy to listen to her reading the telephone directory. We get close to this on her new album … a quiet, contemplative collection of songs, mostly accompanied by gentle piano chords. It’s a beautiful work, despite continuing to sail mischievously close to self-parody … Much as I have been enjoying ‘Ceremonials’, the new album from Florence + The Machine … it is no substitute for the real thing. More please!”

Mistraldespair stop motion film segment to premiere on Kate’s site tonight!

Kate is premièring the second of three film segments from her new album at 7.30pm GMT at her official site. This is the first time that Kate has directed a stop-motion film. The film is titled ‘Mistraldespair‘ and she writes about the people and process behind the film at her site here. Each of the three films last about 2 and half minutes. We have already seen the film for Wild Man. Mistraldespair features part of the epic song, Misty. Enjoy!

[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JoPFIWOONU[/youtube]

From Kate… I am delighted to announce the premiere of “Mistraldespair”, the 2nd visual piece. This accompanies a segment from the track ‘Misty’. It has been a very intense journey but I am really happy with the end result. It is a 2 and a half minute stop motion animation.

It has been created by the extremely talented Tommy Thompson. He has worked so hard and devotedly. Fantastic job!

As I’m sure you are aware, stop frame animation is a truly painstaking process, one that I feel has a purity and incredible beauty because of its organic nature.  I wanted to try and achieve something quite adult that involved a slow, sensual feel. Not something you often see in the usually more slap-stick approach to this medium.

There are some people I want to thank:  Andre Masters who created the lovely female puppet, Gary Cureton for his animation, Ben Perrot and Matt Curtis for their wonderful post production work, Paul Matchliss, Ben Cote, Hazel Pethig, Juan Carlos and Foad Shah.  Adam, Emily, the two Robs and Patrick at Deluxe.  Special thanks to Bertie and Dan.

I want to especially thank Mike Solinger, a brilliant producer and a total joy to work with.

I have never directed a stop motion animation before. It has been a fascinating and very rewarding experience.

Tommy Thompson is going to be a huge star!

I hope you like it.
Kate

“Uncompromisingly original “: Irish Times

4 stars from Sinead Gleeson in the Irish Times:

hugely ambitious while sounding very interior. Poignant and reflective, it requires time and commitment: there are no radio-friendly centrepieces … the production is less crowded than previous work, giving the songs the space they need. With so much focus on piano, some will point to the similarity between the songs, but 50 Words for Snow sidesteps sameness, and actually binds the album into a story of overlapping themes and musical tropes … The voice is aging well, and its sonorous tone adds a solemnity to things. 50 Words for Snow is a sublime achievement, as uncompromisingly original as anything Bush has ever done.”

“Otherworldly and disarmingly, invitingly human”: Varsity

Another five stars from Rory Williamson at the Cambridge Varsity:

50 Words for Snow – the very idea is excessive, superfluous, even ridiculous, but this is precisely the kind of material from which only Kate Bush can create a masterpiece. As seven songs slowly unfurl for over an hour on the topic, the listener is left only with a strengthened sense of Bush’s uncanny ability to form an inhabitable world in an album … a welcome reminder of the songwriter’s lauded ability to juggle the sublime and the ridiculous … Lyrical playfulness is second nature for Bush, but 50 Words for Snow achieves cohesiveness across its seven tracks between even the most disparate ideas. It is a landscape populated by lost figures: the “lonely” Yeti of ‘Wild Man,’ the vanishing snowman of ‘Misty,’ the woman’s spirit crying out for her dog on ‘Lake Tahoe.’ For all of its light-heartedness, the title track’s endless synonyms point to the ephemeral fragility of snow that the record explores throughout: nothing here can be pinned down, as lovers have to separate, the animated snowman melts and the snowflake given voice on the opener proves impossible to find. The frozen landscape, for all its beauty, is harsh; it separates, confounds and ultimately disappears as quietly as it came … the work of a consummate artist who can simultaneously engage with her inherent whimsy and divorce herself from it, producing something both otherworldly and disarmingly, invitingly human.”

A meeting point for rock and classical

Sinead Gleeson (a Dublin based journalist and broadcaster) who writes for the Irish Times considers how the barriers between diffrent types of music are crumbling:

Classical composition also provides a natural home for the tricky beast that is the concept album. One of the reasons Kate Bush’s new work , 50 Words for Snow, is so effective is because the lengthy song-cycle structure works so well in a classical context. That she chose to pare things back to piano and strings also indicates the classical leanings of the album …”

“Haunting, jazz-based, Gregorian chamber poetry”: Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

Short capsule review from Jeff Spevak at the Democrat:

an uncompromising, influential artist. This haunting, jazz-based, Gregorian chamber poetry … lends breathtaking depth to provocative ideas ...”

Soldout Blog: “she has made one of the best albums of her career…it’s a triumph”

Novelist and poet Collin Kelley describes 50 Words For Snow as “perfection” in his review at Soldout Blog:

“Among Angels” is an absolutely stunning piece of work and features Kate’s best vocal performance on the album. The new, husky-voiced Kate we heard on Director’s Cut and throughout most of this album seems to melt away as her voice soars over the heart-rending lyrics: “There’s someone who’s loved you forever, but you don’t know it.” The song begins with a false start and you hear Kate very quietly say “sorry” before she returns to the piano. It’s odd that she left it in, but also charming in an unexplainable way.”

Does Kate Bush deserve the five-star critics? – Independent

Tom Sutcliffe at The Independent wonders if the music critics have been abdicating their duty and giving 50 Words a bye, merely because Kate is perceived to be a national treasure …

since I’d spent several days listening to the album something didn’t quite fit for me. It had its virtues, certainly, and I don’t think anyone would deny the quality of the thing – in terms of performance and recording. But it seemed odd that a record so quirky – and so hazardously earnest – would generate such unanimity across the board. Rock critics aren’t famously forgiving creatures, after all, and yet there were moments here that struck me as virtually impossible to listen to without laughing …”

50 Words nominated for London Music Awards

According to the blurb, The London Awards for Art and Performance are “the country’s most expansive awards and recognises artists and performers across many art-forms. Each is presented to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to their art form.”  The nominees themselves will be asked to select their top 3 in their category (excluding themselves) and from that the organisers will arrive at a shortlist to be announced in Spring 2012.

Kate has now been nominated for her new album 50 Words for Snow.

BBC Radio 6 Music interview with Lauren Laverne

This brilliant interview with Kate on sparkling form, can be heard on the BBC iPlayer at Lauren’s page here.

“It really is that good”: HeavyVinyl

Keiron at HeavyVinyl is very wary of all the good reviews of 50 Words … but guess what:

I may have read more reviews of this than any musical opus released this year. It’s partly my own fault as I too am one of “those people” whose rabid love for all things Kate can bore the shit out of people at parties … Every article I read makes the situation worse as there is a huge consensus that this is her best work… and this, predictably, grates with my sensibilities…. as I am one of those people who, when told what to think by critics and zeitgeist alike, tends to reject this perceived opinion with every fabric of my DNA. I. Just. Can’t. Help. It … Kate has stripped back the orchestration of “The Red Shoes” and “Ariel” to make a record that is both brave and beautiful. But despite the simplicity it is never sparse.. in fact it’s positively dense with ideas, lyrics, trembling pianos, choirs and stories that swirl round the listener like a blizzard. You can lose yourself in the melody and language and warm yourself with that incredible quivering voice. I know, I’m gushing, but it really is that good. Kate Bush really is an artist without peer and this is a perfect album for any season …”

“Awful … ludicrous … Meatloaf”: BBC Radio 6 Roundtable

50 Words was comprehensively trashed on Steve Lamacq’s Roundtable on BBC Radio 6 this evening. Miranda Sawyer (as we already know) thought it was “awful”, Jamie Hince thought it “ludicrous”, and Elizabeth Morris confessed to being confused and  compared it to Meatloaf. Should you want to listen it’s just short of 48 minutes into the stream.

Hear Mike Ragogna’s interview with Kate

Mike Ragogna’s interview with Kate, transcripts of which has turned up on a number of blogs, was transmitted today on Community Radio Station KRUU Fairfield and can be heard here (Thanks Louise).

“Cannot discern what is so great about it”: Rock’s Backpages

Barney Hoskyns, the co-founder and editorial director of Rock’s Backpages:

As a staunch and loyal fan of Dame Katherine, I have to confess to some surprise at the plethora of 5-star reviews elicited by 50 TYPES OF SNOW. I’ve spent a week with the album and cannot discern what is so great about it. Even if you don’t miss the wild pop genius of the ’80s and love the mature piano melancholia of middle-aged Bush, she did the latter a lot better on AERIAL … Only on “Wild Man” does she pull off the kind of haunting pop classic we remember …. Or am I missing something?

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