Kate Bush : Director’s Cut
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Kate Bush : Director’s Cut

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Kate Bush fans desperate for new material from the reclusive star have been awarded an intriguing prize in the form of Director’s Cut. Calling this new however is misleading as all songs are entirely updated versions, culled from roughly two halves of previously released albums. The track list is compiled from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes, with only the former’s title track receiving a completely new set of lyrics.

Renamed Flower Of The Mountain, The Sensual World could largely be seen as the catalyst of Bush’s latest move. At the song’s conception, Kate intended to use part of poet James Joyce’s novel Ulysses lyrically, but was denied rights. Last year, with full access finally granted to Joyce’s words, Kate remade the song as she’d always intended and so began work on ‘correcting’ more and more of the songs that have dogged her over time. The fact that the entire album is comprised of music from those two particular albums won’t surprise many long-term fans of Kate.

Now that Kate has put right what she had long seen as errors in her last two pre-millennium albums, the same things that will please many long-time fans are the very same that will disappoint others. As hopelessly devoted a fan, I can’t help but feel heavily critical of the re-workings in both positive and negative ways. Whereas I totally respect Kate’s decision to remake a few songs that she has long felt uncomfortable with, there are mixed results with no noticeable consideration for what her fans may have loved about these tracks in the first place.

My first criticism would be that the vastly different albums (in their original state) don’t mesh particularly when assembled as one piece.The Sensual World – always the black sheep in Kate’s catalogue – had a distinctly down-tempo, almost grim prevailing mood, whereas The Red Shoes was a spiky pagan romp through tales of black magic and mythology. Kate felt a deep disappointment over how The Red Shoes was received, and in many cases the criticisms where unusually severe. The fact that she disappeared from the public eye completely after, it’s been suggested, was partly down to being so brutally scorned over the album and its accompanying film – The Line, The Cross & The Curve – which leads me to wonder if re-recording that album alone would have sufficed. The Sensual World tracks, after all, are the least altered among this collection.

This Woman’s Work for example, is thankfully only slightly tweaked, with the most notable change being a cleaner vocal. There’s welcome restraint on Song Of Solomon and Lily – both of which retain all of the magic of their parent versions, and Top Of The City also remains glorious, if not a little less starry-eyed than its 1993 counterpart.

However, Red Shoes’ most powerful six minutes – Moments Of Pleasure – has been shorn down to bare bones, omitting everything from its beautiful climactic refrain, to its strings and dynamics. This simple piano and choir version does carry greater melancholy suited to the song’s meaning, but less is definitely not more in this case.

Nit-picking aside, let me be totally clear, Director’s Cut is by no means a hatchet job done on some old songs in a vain effort to drag them into modern, shiny perfection. Instead Bush has re-done her vocals – in nearly every case – to simply suit her matured, lower octave range and swept away a lot of the layered post-production in favour of some raw jam-style live band mixes. Considering there’s a snowball’s chance of a full world tour, is a really a massive tease.

The biggest tease of all lies in the actual possibilities not realised on some of these tracks. The brassy rumba of Rubberband Girl (from The Red Shoes) has been reduced – and not improved upon at all – to a vocal, electric guitar, drum and harmonica plod. Far more satisfying is the album’s single, Deeper Understanding, which works perfectly in its updated form because of its lyric – written in 1989 – about computers taking the place of meaningful inter-human exchanges.

However Bush’s own reliance on current technology in making this record is limited to that song with its auto-tune refrain being the only inorganic sound throughout. As the project’s initial purpose was to strip away the slightly saccharine production of these song’s originals, all bar Deeper Understanding have been recorded entirely using analogue equipment which, for the most part, provides undeniable warmth in the sound. It seems odd that Kate should shy away from these advances considering the remarkable use of digital techniques and effects on her 1985 LP, Hounds Of Love. There’s evidence-a-plenty in Kate’s back catalogue of an artist who could always comfortably marry the timeless with the very latest.

The perfectionist that is Kate Bush coupled with the amount of time passed since these songs were written in theory should really have produced outstanding results rather than a sizable percentage of confounding ones. Perhaps the long-gestating gripe Kate had with the too-many-cooks sound on The Red Shoes and the occasionally flat-lining Sensual World should have been addressed sooner rather than later.

The best news? Kate, when re-imagining these songs, was inspired to write an entirely new album in the process due out later this year. In the meantime, listeners reacquainting themselves with Kate’s newly re-nurtured back catalogue ‘misfires’ have plenty to mull over, find renewed love for or even straight-out hate. Whichever her unwavering disciples choose, one thing is for sure, having Kate Bush back in any form at all is still a delight worth indulging in.

 

Best Track: This Woman’s Work

If You Like This You’ ll Like These: The Hounds Of Love KATE BUSH, The Seventh Tree GOLDFRAPP, To Bring You My Love PJ HARVEY

In a Word: Teasing