5/5 from Simon Gage in the Daily Express:
“From the beautiful, poetic low-key first track Snowflake, you can expect to take a typically eccentric journey through a snowy landscape that only Kate could come up with. The tracks are long, the guests unexpected … and there’s certainly nothing to sing along to in the car but we’re talking about a proper artist here. With a beautifully done Elton duet as a highlight, this is strange, simple and quite lovely.”
Four stars from Will Hodgkinson in The Times (behind the paywall):
“50 Words For Snow goes beyond good taste, because it is as intriguing and eccentric as it is restrained … Through an artistic process Bush is bringing us up close to a deep aspect of her life, while also capturing the childlike wonder of falling snow. The mood throughout the album is stark and, although it’s a word that gets applied to Kate Bush rather too much, ethereal. There’s a sense that the natural world is home to the mysterious beings that crop up in folklore and fairy tales … Ultimately you have to ask: would 50 Words For Snow stand up, away from the cult of Kate Bush? Yes, because it is odd, beautiful, and quite unlike anything else out there.”
Gavin Cullen reviews 50 Words for MTV.co.uk:
“As ever, Bush’s voice is a marvellously unique and sensual instrument. She plays the part of many of the characters who inhabit 50 Words’ worlds, channelling their words as if performing a seance, yet manages to keep the process gimmick free and entirely natural. As well as once again confirming Bush’s voice and melodic talents, 50 Words reinforces her highly imaginative powers of storytelling … 50 Words For Snow is an astounding piece of work unlike anything else. Initially baffling and at times so sparse and slight it appears to melt away as soon as the notes are struck, over time it reveals itself to be an incredibly fulfilling and enchanting collection, twinkling with magic and frozen beauty.”
Andy Gill, whom we remember from the inkie era way back when, interviews Kate for the Independent:
“I have a theory that there are still parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age of between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up,” she explains. “I think our essence is there in a much more powerful way when we’re children, and if you’re lucky enough to be treated reasonably well, and can hang onto who you are, you do have that at your core for the rest of your life. I guess that’s what I meant, really: it’s not that I actually think of myself as a little girl, but she is right in my core.”
Andy Gill also gives the album a five star review:
“the individual tracks seeming to coalesce gently, like snow gathering in drifts: most consist of simple, unhurried piano parts, underscored by ambient synth pads, strings, and occasionally a touch of jazzy reeds, or Oriental-sounding twang. The result is a lush, immersive work which is sonically more homogeneous than her earlier albums, reflecting the conceptual solidity of its wintry theme, in which fantastical, mythic narratives are allowed to take shape under the cover of its snowy blanket…”
Five star very happy review from Alexis Petrides at The Guardian:
“There are many peculiar things about Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow. If it’s not strictly speaking a Christmas album, it’s certainly a seasonal one, and the seasonal album is these days more associated with Justin Bieber than critically acclaimed singer-songwriters following their own wildly idiosyncratic path. It devotes nearly 14 impossibly beautiful minutes to Misty, a song on which Bush imagines first building a snowman and then, well, humping him, with predictably unhappy consequences … For all the subtle beauty of the orchestrations, there’s an organic, live feel, the sense of musicians huddled together in a room, not something that’s happened on a Bush album before. That aside, 50 Words for Snow is extraordinary business as usual for Bush, meaning it’s packed with the kind of ideas you can’t imagine anyone else in rock having. Taking notions that look entirely daft on paper and rendering them into astonishing music is very much Bush’s signature move. There’s something utterly inscrutable and unknowable about how she does it that has nothing to do with her famous aversion to publicity.“
Mikael Wood at EW rates 50 Words A- and gives us another very nice short:
“Bush follows up May’s Director’s Cut with a boldly stripped-down set that distills her off-kilter aesthetic to its purest essence: Think tolling piano chords, swooping vocals, and loads of dreamy poetry about horses and porcelain dolls. It’s all gorgeous — even the 13-minute ”Misty” — but 50 Words for Snow peaks with a stunning Elton John duet…”
FURTHER UPDATE: 6 Music has now tweeted that the interview will be broadcast “a week today” i.e. Thursday 24th November. The Morning Show is on between 10.00 am and 13.00 pm GMT and will doubtless be available as a stream afterwards from the 6 Music website.
UPDATE: As you were. Laura was off to interview Kate this morning, and the interview looks likely to appear on Radio 6 at a later date. We’ll let you know when
Lauren Laverne, host of 6 Music’s morning show has tweeted that she will “be round Kate Bush’s for a cup of tea and a chat” on Thursday morning.
Kate has announced on her official website the premier tonight of the animation for Wild Man. Watch it below:
[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIF40L-_HjA[/youtube]
Hi everyone,
I am delighted to announce the premier of our first animated film tonight. It only runs for about 2 1/2 minutes but huge amounts of care and work have gone into this. I think it looks so atmospheric and has a beautifully crafted and unique look. It has been created by Finn and Patrick at Brandt Animation. It has been really exciting working on this. I hope you like it.
I want to say a very special thanks to Mike Solinger, the producer on this project. Without him this could never have happened. I would also like to thank the Yeti who was the inspiration for the song and this short film. I hope it remains an enigma.
With very best wishes,
Kate
You can watch the animation on Kate’s official site at 19:30 GMT here.
A short but beautiful review from Superversity:
“Kate Bush always challenges her audience. No one gets off easy once they enter her arena. Her music is “serious stuff’ compared to the immediately accessible pabulum that floods pop music. And, if the listener rises to her challenge, the reward is always substantial. This isn’t music for people who want background noise to balance their accounts by. Nor is it assaulting and angry as much rock can be. This is music for intense focus and contemplation. Ms. Bush is a weaver of words and sounds into aural tapestries that cover over the listener like a blanket of emotion. The music is seductive and unusually obtuse at first, but every time you hear it there is something new waiting to be found. These pieces are less songs than aural puzzles waiting to be solved and managing to evade solution even with familiarity. Still, the elusive nature of her music isn’t frustrating but . . . challenging . . . as much of the best music is. Open your ears. Open your mind. Listen.”
The Quotodians are entranced by the Winter beauty of 50 Words:
“50 Words for Snow is very much a winter album and is the perfect accompaniment for cocooning with in the chill of these dark, desolate months with its simultaneously warm, glacial and spatial atmospheric sonic soundscapes and imaginative lyrical subject matter. After spending several days acquainting myself with the album each listen rewards me with some new experience and discovery and that is the beauty of Bush’s best work as it holds an endless supply of experiences and relies less on initial impact than longevity. It almost makes me long for snow and after the extended and inconvenient big chills of the last two winters I never thought I would wish for that ever again.”
Marin Nelson at Vivoscene does not have the patience for long tracks:
“sometimes thirteen-minute marathon songs detailing emotional distance and intemperate affairs are too much. By the time Stephen Fry literally recites 50 words for, about, or conjuring snow in the title track, you’ll probably have frostbite. Or want it, just for an excuse to go inside for some respite. Kate Bush is one of the artists you hate to critique. Her long and iconic career has seen ingenuity and brilliance … She’s set an unprecedented standard, especially for an artist that’s been releasing genre-pushing albums since 1978 … Kate Bush’s strengths are ever-present: starkness is captured. When she wants to achieve that deafening silence of drifting snow, she does. Emotional veracity is represented, and lyrically she’s unmatched. It’s likely that Kate Bush meant to time this album as a harbinger for Christmas. But if you’re single and prone to contemplative wine-binges on a cold night, keep 50 Words For Snow far, far away. Or use it as a coaster.”
Track 3 of the new album debuts on Kate’s official site. Watch Misty here this evening till 9pm GMT.
A quick round up of other bits and pieces courtesy of Louise on the site forum: The album will be reviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Review programme on Saturday 19th November at 19.15 GMT…preview of new interview by Joachim Hentschel at Rolling Stone Germany…new interview in Humo Magazine Belgium…MusikExpress Part 6 series feature (though not exclusively about 50 Words)…Kate Bush Netherlands fan club review…Focus Knack Belgium Review…the full album is now streaming via EMI Music Ireland at the Irish Times…it’s also streaming via NYT Finland and EMI Belgium at De Standaard…
[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBV_wd-f9tg[/youtube]
On her official website Kate has announced the release of further promotional material for the new album:
Hi everyone,
Just to let you know that we are currently working on some short visual pieces to go with segments from 3 of the songs on 50 Words For Snow. Each piece will run for about two and a half minutes. We are having great fun creating them and they will be staggered in their release.
In our TV ad you will see clips from two of these pieces and images from the album booklet. The voice is that of the wonderful Mr Stephen Fry. We hope that you like the look of these visuals and that they serve as a preview of what is to come as well as letting people know that the album release is imminent.
Very best wishes,
Kate
Hurry over to Kate’s official site to see the animations and the TV ad!
Josh Hurst is loving it:
“The album is, in a sense, about snow as a symbolic, physical, historic, mythological, and sensual thing. It considers snow as an idea, and as a tangible object in a physical universe. What this means, I think, is that this is the strangest and most erotic holiday album of all time. I’m half joking—there is only one mention of Christmas here—but half not. The wintery mood here is unshakable, the unwavering focus utterly enthralling. This is a sublime album made of seven extraordinary songs, and it offers true delights of poetry and play that no one but Kate Bush could have devised. Poetry and play—yes, those are the twin engines here; the long running time of these songs, and their fanciful approximation of snow, suggests that Bush is almost lost in her own world, letting her own imagination run away with her … 50 Words for Snow is a true marvel, an album that teases with layers of meaning and a steady stream of ideas but never allows for easy summary. It is evocative, but elusive, and its joys come not in pinning it down but in allowing it to dance in front of you, all of its playful poetry and ravishing romance on display...”
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