Category: 50 Words for Snow Page 5 of 12

Tjames Madison at Soundspike is a lover of Kate’s voice:

“Bush remains a singular talent draped in the furs of surreality … It feels like she’s talking about herself by not talking about herself, and why not? The spiky peaks and higher peaks of her youthful chops have been replaced with a sort of smoky mid-range purr, all the better — devoid of much of that voice’s avant garde divisiveness — to examine her role in our modern world as mentor to a bumper crop of spiritual progeny … The instrumentation — Bush accompanying herself with stark, lovely, slightly jazzy piano; the occasional muffled guitar or brushed cymbal or sublimated string section drops in — is gorgeous, and the first half of the wintry song-cycle arrives exactly like its subject, a light, enchanted icefall in near-silence, everyday magic unfolding before your eyes. The tunes wander long and walk softly in this world … But all is not perfect. Elton John’s sudden appearance on “Snowed in on Wheeler Street” feels like an unwelcome intrusion … Fortunately the demure “Among Angels” ends the set back where we started, lost in that haunted, white-dusted graveyard, Bush alone once again with her voice and her piano…”

Album of the week from Tom at Stereogum, a new convert and not the first we’ve heard of since Kate’s new work has been released:

“To this point, I’ve lived a full and happy life without ever much considering the works of Ms. Kate Bush. I knew the singles, sure, and I had a general understanding of her influence on later art-pop spell-weavers … But the singles, with their twisty helium squeals and their non-Euclidean melodies, never convinced me to dig much further. For the most part, Bush has been, for me, one of those canonical blind spots that everyone has. But her new 50 Words For Snow is the sort of album that convinces skeptics like me to go back and reconsider. At first glance, 50 Words For Snow comes waving plenty of red flags of pretentiousness. There’s the butt-ugly cover art. There are the virtually-nonexistent song-structures and the sprawling running times; not a single track dips under six minutes, and most go way longer. There are the loony concepts …  But when you actually give into the album’s seductive calm, all these weaknesses (except maybe the cover art) become strengths. Musically, 50 Words For Snow is a spare and delicate album, one that can unfold hazily in the background without demanding your full attention. Instrumentally, it’s arranged to flutter and waft, with its brushstroke drums and its impressionistic splashes of piano and its unobtrusive electronic ripples. Bush’s formidable voice remains in whisper-coo range most of the time, and her simple phrasings are enough to get under your skin. And with her lyrics so deliberately paced-out, it’s easy to forget how specific and absurd those story-songs can be … And once the album sinks in, which it will, even the most far-out ideas start to raise goosebumps. … the theme of ephemeral love slipping away is even more prevalent …  Once you let the album in, it’s powerful stuff.“

Rich Juzwial reviews the new album for The Daily, an iPad newspaper here. “Not since 1982’s “The Dreaming” has Bush been as gloriously goofy as she is on her 10th album, “50 Words for Snow.” On it, she courts a snowflake, covers the tracks of a yeti to keep him safe from scientists and builds a snowman with whom she has an affair. Her duet with Elton John, “Snowed in at Wheeler Street,” plays out much like the hilariously clueless audition duet of “Midnight at the Oasis” in “Waiting for Guffman” (“Just two old flames keeping the fire going/ We look so good together,” growls John.) Even loopier is her collaboration with Stephen Fry on the album’s title track, which finds him listing off increasingly unlikely synonyms for snow (“swans-a-melting,” “faloop’njoompoola,” “creaky-creaky,” “Zhivagodamarbletash,” “bad for trains,” “blown from polar fur”) with Bush interrupting intermittently (“Come on man, you got 44 to go!”). If Bush isn’t having a laugh here, she’s at least plowing the way for everyone else.

Unfortunately, “50 Words for Snow” is more fun to think about than it is to listen to. While Bush retains her interest in brushed drums and upright bass that was apparent on “Aerial,” completely new to her aesthetic is an abandonment of pop structure, which is a shame. These seven tracks come in at 65 minutes, and one of them, “Misty,” runs 13 maddeningly chorus-less minutes. Bush’s piano playing is more a drizzle than a flurry: Repetitive themes just trickle out, leaving plenty of space between. The album crystallizes in the middle, finding a more upbeat structure (“Wildman” even has a hook!), but this is Bush at her most musically obtuse.

Another four stars from Stephen Dalton in The National (Abu Dhabi):

“A new Kate Bush album is always an event. The 53-year-old queen of ethereal English folk-pop may have spent much of the past two decades in reclusive semi-retirement, but the mystique around her has only deepened. … her second album release this year, a lyrically opaque but musically rich meditation on the theme of snow and its attendant folk myths. … a more supple and contemporary affair, with a lightly experimental sound that could sit comfortably alongside recent work by PJ Harvey or Radiohead. Once shrill and piercing, Bush’s midlife voice has grown more rounded and husky, from the dreamy half-whisper … A rambling and eccentric folly, 50 Words for Snow may not satisfy fans of Bush’s early, concise, melodramatic art-pop. But this is still a largely successful experiment, and heartening proof that the creative juices are flowing again.”

Leigh Bartlam at Wears The Trousers magazine writes: “It’s too soon to predict how well 50 Words For Snow will stand up to the inevitable comparisons with her previous “masterpieces”, but with not one dull, waning or filler track on the album, and every one of its sixty-five minutes offering glistening moments of the artist at her most inspired and productive, it could well be that we’re in the presence of yet another Kate Bush classic.” The album is awarded 10/10. Read the full (lengthy) review here. (with thanks to Brian C)

8.5/10 “Best New Music” from Ryan Dombal at Pitchfork Media:

“Bush continues to infuse her narratives with a beguiling complexity while retaining some old-school directness. Because while most of this album’s songs can be easily summarized … they contain wondrous multitudes thanks to the singer’s still-expressive voice and knack for uncanny arrangements. And mood. There’s an appealing creepiness that runs through this album, one that recalls the atmospheric and conceptual back half of her 1985 masterpiece Hounds of Love. Indeed, when considering this singular artist in 2011, it’s difficult to think of worthy points of reference aside from Bush herself … In an interview earlier this year, the 53-year-old Bush told me she doesn’t listen to much new music, and after listening to the stunningly subtle and understated sounds on Snow, it’s easy to believe her … This is an album about trying, oftentimes futilely, to find connections– between Bush and her characters, reality and surreality, love and death … While much of 50 Words for Snow conjures a whited-out, dream-like state of disbelief, it’s important to note that Bush does everything in her power to make all the shadowy phantoms here feel real. Her best music, this album included, has the effect of putting one in the kind of treasured, child-like space– not so much innocent as open to imagination– that never gets old … Snow isn’t a blissful retreat to simpler times, though. It’s fraught with endings, loss, quiet– adult things. This is more than pure fantasy.”

9/10 from Martyn Young at DIY:

“there is definitely a pronounced wintry feeling to these subtle, delicate and at times desolate songs. For an artist who has a reputation for making theatrical, florid music ‘50 Words Of Snow’ features Bush showing her capacity for restraint and her supreme gift for making meticulously crafted beautiful music. The album is very long, indeed at least two of the tracks are over ten minutes in length, but it never fails to captivate and is never dull. In much the same way as it is possible to stare enthralled at falling snow for hours the fragile songs here, despite their length, leave you engrossed … The great thing about Kate Bush is that you cannot imagine anyone else ever possibly making the music she does, and ‘50 Words For Snow’ is another impossibly beautiful and individually brilliant album. A perfect accompaniment to those long and dark wintry nights.”

Five Stars from Sam Wiseman at The Skinny:

“Could anyone except Kate Bush create a concept album about snow, incorporating a duet with Elton John, featuring a title track that sees Stephen Fry reciting a list of increasingly surreal words to describe the substance – and expect to be taken seriously? Bush, of course, has never troubled herself with such concerns, working as she does in an imaginative realm that seems wholly insulated from critical or commercial expectations. As on 2005’s Aerial, it’s 50 Words for Snow’s improbable fusion of drama, magic and absurdity that makes it so compelling. Musically, the uncannily soft, blurry edges of that record return, underpinning Bush’s mysterious ability to create atmospheres simultaneously sublime and understated.”

Arwa Haider writes in the UK Metro paper today: “…still radiating sexy mystique, Kate Bush has suddenly hit a prolific purple patch…these are adventurous, multi-layered works you can really sink into…with instrumentation merging classical choruses, sweetly mournful piano and electronics, this album is an eccentric thing of beauty…” (This review also appeared this morning in their sister paper, the Dublin Metro Herald)