To celebrate 20 years of the Aerial album, we’ve been putting together a time capsule each day this week leading up to today, November 7th (the release date anniversary!). It’s been a daily miscellany of the events, people and objects that relate to Kate’s extraordinary eighth studio album. We can’t believe it’s been two decades, for so many of us this still feels like a “new” album, and the album’s beautiful gifts just keep revealing themselves…I hope you’ve enjoyed looking back at Aerial with us!
Aerial – Happening of the day
Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of the Aerial album on November 7th 2005. Hearing A Sky of Honey live on stage, in its (considerably expanded) entirety, was a dream come true for me and so many fans…it still seems quite surreal. The 22 Before The Dawn shows were a triumph on every level. As we are celebrating Aerial, it’s thrilling to think back to Kate’s inclusion of two songs from A Sea of Honey in her opening act also.
So, today, for our final happening of this Aerial week, it’s enough to just marvel at the fact that Kate staged two of her most majestic, enduring conceptual works, and so many other incredible songs, live on stage to throngs of fans who never dreamed such a thing would ever happen.
Kate chose to perform Joanni, her song from a Sea of Honey about Joan of Arc, in the opening section of the show. Kevin McAlea had recently recorded cathedral bells in Rouen, France, where Joan met her fate, and he played them at rehearsal. Kate had changed the key to accommodate her more mature voice, and according to her “the first thing we all said was, ‘My God, they’re in tune!’” she recalled. “If we hadn’t taken the song down in pitch, they wouldn’t have been in tune.” The lighting rig at the back of the stage created the rippling upward effect of flames as the song was performed – Kate facing out into her “thousands of soldiers.”
King of the Mountain was a live highlight for many who attended – it was utterly transformed from the album version, building and building to evoke the catastrophic storm to come in The Ninth Wave section – Kate belting out the song, “there’s a storm rising!”, ending in an explosion of golden confetti and lightning effects as the sound of Mino Cinélu’s incredible twirling bullroarer hit the back of the venue.
Before the live album was released, on October 16th 2016, King of the Mountain (Live) was exclusively played on BBC6 Music radio. “SWEET JESUS, THAT’S AMAZING!” was the immediate on-air reaction from DJ Shaun Keaveny after he played the full 8-minute track. Joined in studio by Matt Everitt, the giddy praise from the duo continued – “incredible”, “beautiful”, “remarkable”. Such was the ecstatic reaction from both listeners and presenters, the show played the track in its entirety again an hour later!
The truth is I could talk all day about the show, and A Sky of Honey in particular – but I already have! As part of my epic three-part series of podcast episodes about Before the Dawn for the Kate Bush Fan podcast. Here’s a 30-minute extract below in which I talk through the entire A Sky of Honey on stage. I tried as best as I could to describe my memory of having seen the show on opening night. Enjoy!
Aerial – People of the day
Well, I highlighted many musicians in September when I put together 30 daily time capsules for Hounds of Love (check those out here), but today, I just wanted to give a quick nod to some of the outstanding people who worked with Kate yet again on Aerial. They are truly Kate Bush ‘All-Stars’, and while some of them are no longer with us, they live brightly forever in the grooves of magnificent records like Aerial.
So, a round of applause then, for the great Del Palmer, who was not only the brilliant recording and mixing engineer on Aerial, but played bass guitar on five of the album tracks also; King of the Mountain, How To Be Invisible, Joanni, Somewhere in Between and Aerial.
Paddy Bush must have been excited to hear his backing vocals on his little sister’s comeback single, King of The Mountain, when it stormed the charts in October 2005 – “The wind it blows…” Stuart Elliott, another gifted veteran of so much of Kate’s work, plays drums on four tracks; Pi, How To Be Invisible, Sunset and Somewhere in Between.
John Giblin added his impeccable bass to three songs; An Architect’s Dream, Sunset and Nocturn. Eberhard Weber returned to work with Kate on Pi and Prologue, playing electric upright bass, and Michael Kamen completed his orchestral work on the album with Kate at Abbey Road, scoring Prologue and The Painter’s Link, mere weeks before he passed away in November 2003. Keeping the much-missed Del, John and Michael in our thoughts.
Speaking of superheroes (see what I did there?) these artworks below are wonderful and I had to share them somewhere – artist Liam Alexander has published an entire set of Kate Bush comic book covers, one for each album. Aerial’s two covers are shown below. Every song on each album is referenced in some of the details. Prints available at his shop here.
Aerial – Artefact of the day
(Brought to you in association with katebushcollectibles.com)
Jordan Atkinson worked on much of the inspired merchandise available at Before the Dawn and the attention to detail on these items was often staggering. On his site he says: “Working with Firebrand, Kate Bush and her creative team, I oversaw the merchandise creative. We designed a number of products that reflected Kate’s vision for the show. Including a variety of apparel, a rescue kit and tour programme.
Feathers and bird imagery abounded, but one of the items that relates to A Sky of Honey was this truly great Nocturn t-shirt with a very special design.
Jordan Atkinson writes: “As well as producing the back print, based on the moon cycle on the dates of the tour, I was able to produce more illustrative concepts. Kate had requested the lyrics to the song Nocturn be illustrated inside bird wings. Here is the initial concept within a blackbird. As well as the final chosen pair of wings on the back of the t-shirt.”
Aerial – Trivia of the day
Okay, so we’ve been staring at this soundwave that appears on the cover of Aerial all week, and of course by now everyone knows that it is the soundwave of a Blackbird song. But, did you ever wonder exactly what bit of blackbird song it represents? Well, some clever people online have already figured that out for you. A big clue was the timings given in the Aerial booklet artwork – this soundwave represented just less than two seconds of audio…
Isolating the blackbird song from the record, you can hear the soundwave in its glorious original blackbird language in the clip below:
In 2005 Kate issued a mauve cotton t-shirt with yellow soundwave graphics on front and back. It was available in the online store and also issued for promotional purposes. Geeky fact: The back print had a different soundwave…
However, Kate wasn’t done with her iconic soundwave imagery just yet. In 2018, Kate revisited her Aerial bird/soundwave imagery to convey the sound remastering that had been carried out on her entire catalogue for the extensive Remastered project. A sparkling fresh remaster of How To Be Invisible from Aerial was used in a TV ad, narrated by Irish actor John Lynch.
The Remastered logo with soundwave appeared on posters, tote bags and lithographs and was used to promote a special 5-day pop-up shop event in London’s Coal Drops Yard 5th-10th December 2018 – in aid of the Crisis homeless charity. Read more about the shop in my news item here.
A remarkable piece of design work Kate wanted was this amazing hoodie print design – the soundwave made up of all of Kate’s song titles in tiny letters, with some extra lyrics from Lily thrown in for good measure. I believe credit goes to Stuart Crouch for this brilliant work – amazing, as always. You can still buy this (and a tote bag with the design) at Kate’s official site here.
Aerial – Bird of the day
The Blackbird song is rather slow, mellow and fluty, the notes ranging widely and the sound quite far-carrying. The quality of sound resembles Song thrush, but the phrases do not repeat, but ramble on continually changing slightly. Calls include an agitated “chink, chink, chink” or “chack, chack..”, a whinnying horse-like cry and a thin “psew”.
Well look, today it could only be the star of the show, Mr Soundwave himself, the Blackbird! It is the commonest and most widespread member of the Thrush family In Ireland and the UK. The all black plumage and yellow bill of the male is unmistakable. However, females are much browner, with speckles on the upper breast and at first glance resemble a Song Thrush. Often cocks long tail when alarmed or when running along ground.
To grasp just how much Kate LOVES blackbirds, the author Leah Kardos detailed examples from throughout Kate’s entire career in a section of her highly recommended book, Hounds of Love (33⅓) which is available to purchase here. I’m summarising some of Leah’s excellent examples:
1980: Nick Price’s Never for Ever cover artwork includes a blackbird flying out from under Kate’s skirt which Leah notes had “musical notes trailing in its wake.”
1985: In Waking the Witch from The Ninth Wave, as the woman lost at sea is accused of witchcraft, she cries, ‘Help this blackbird! There’s a stone around my leg…’ These lines were also heard live on stage in 2014 in both The Ninth Wave and during Nocturn.
1993: An early demo of Why Should I Love You?, leaked online in 2007, with the lyric ‘If I could sing like a blackbird, just like my heart was filled with summer’
1993: Promotional photos for The Red Shoes taken by Anthony Crickmay, have Kate wearing what Leah describes as “a black and red gown, its bodice decorated with iridescent feathers. A blackbird is positioned on her head like a fascinator hat.”
1993: The And So Is Love music video from The Line, the Cross & the Curve, has Kate encountering “a trapped blackbird in her darkened dance studio; she catches and releases it, but it hits a glass window and dies. She picks up its body and kisses it to sleep. When she enters the mirror world to break the curse of the red shoes, she is dressed in the feathered gown from the Crickmay shoot, the blackbird placed in her hair, its wings pointing up.”, as described by Leah Kardos in her book.
1996: Lyricist Don Black tells the following anecdote about Bush on an edition of the BBC Radio 2 programme They Write the Songs: “I met Kate just a few weeks ago . . . I asked [her] if she had a favourite singer and she said her favourite is the blackbird and her second favourite is the thrush – well, I told you she was different.”
2005: Aerial! Obviously there’s the album cover image with blackbird soundwave. Blackbirds are also heard throughout A Sky of Honey, in particular Aerial Tal “where Bush mimics the bird’s song in the style of Indian tala music” writes Leah Kardos. “And the title-track finale, where a blackbird is given an entire section of the song to sing solo, with Bush laughing along.”
From the Tom Doyle Mojo interview in 2005: Kate says: “It’s almost like they’re vocalising light …And I love the idea that it’s a language we don’t understand. Obviously, a lot of it is like, “Fuck off! This is my spot.” And obviously, “Cor, you’re a bit of all right!” But there’s more to it than that. It’s incredibly complex.”
2011: Leah points out in her book that the fourth word for snow on the title track from 50 Words For Snow is ‘Blackbird Braille’.
2014: Before The Dawn (see our ‘Happening of the day’ and podcast excerpt above). Leah Kardos writes: “Bush is seen wearing black wings momentarily at the end of ‘Waking the Witch’ and again at the gig’s conclusion, when in the final seconds of ‘Aerial’ she takes flight.”
Hounds of Love (33⅓) by Leah Kardos is available to purchase here.
Thanks to the Birdwatch Ireland website for feathered friend info this week! Many thanks to James at the amazing katebushcollectibles.com site for all the help with the artefacts posts, to Brian Cloughley for his lovely 20th anniversary graphic, to Tristan, Peter, Krys, Dave, Darrell, Pekka, Paul and all the KB pals who helped along the way. Endless thanks to Kate for making Aerial and putting it out into the world. And thanks to all of you for reading our Aerial celebration for the last week!
And finally, I’d like to thank Pete Murphy who worked as Head of Media in EMI Music Ireland back in October 2005, for allowing me to hear Aerial a few weeks in advance in their beautiful offices, here in Dublin. I felt sure my chest was about to explode. It was the album I was hoping that Kate would make and I really did float out of that building. Above is a pin badge and postcard I was given by him on that unforgettable day, cheers Pete! – Seán
From Kate’s official site: “The double-vinyl version of ‘Aerial’ should be in the shops from this Saturday (17th December) – beautifully packaged in a gatefold sleeve with large 24-page colour booklet.” Great news! At last fans can add this to their record collections in time for Christmas, we’re already hearing great things about how these records sound and look, and we’ll be checking for the traditional vinyl scratched message from Kate…
