“I think it was probably the most difficult stage I’ve been at so far, because The Dreaming, the album before, I’d never produced an album before that one. And in this song, this woman is being persecuted by the witch hunter and a whole jury, although she’s committed no crime and they’re trying to push her under the water to see if she’ll sink or float.” In a way it’s very sexist behaviour and I feel that female intuition and instincts are very strong and are still put down really. “I think it’s very interesting the concept of witch hunting, and the fear of women’s power. Later in the album, Waking the Witch is inspired by Kate’s interest in witch hunting and how she believes the practice is rooted in sexism… Because in a way it’s so much more powerful asking God to make a deal with you.” And then I thought well no, why not a deal with God. “I was trying to say that really a man and a woman can’t understand each other because we are a man and a woman, and if we could actually swap each other's roles, if we could actually be in each other's place for a while, I think we’d both be very surprised and I think it would lead to a greater understanding and really the only way I could think it could be done is either, you know, a deal with the devil. I find this really horrific, these are all my own personal worst nightmares put into song.” “Now this poor sod has been in the water for hours, they’ve been witch hunted and everything and suddenly they’re at home in spirit, seeing their loved one waiting for them to get home… but there’s no way that you can actually communicate, they can’t see you, they can’t hear you. And the end of it, it’s the idea of seeing themselves under the frozen ice in the river, so we’re talking real nightmare stuff here.”Īnd in Watching You Without Me, Kate describes someone seeing their loved ones at home but not being able to communicate with them at all - when discussing the second side of the album, she says they’re her own personal nightmares put into song… “Again it’s very lonely, it’s terribly lonely, they are all alone on this frozen lake. Under Ice, as the title would suggest, is about the protagonist seeing themselves trapped in frozen water. since Abbey Road, and it's pretty plain that Bush listened to (and learned from) a lot of the Beatles' output in her youth.In true Kate Bush style, her skill for storytelling is showcased across the album to bring the nightmare themes to life - from witch hunting to being trapped underwater. Indeed, this reviewer hadn't had so much fun and such a challenge listening to a new album from the U.K. That vastly divergent grasp, from the minutiae of each song to the broad sweeping arc of the two suites, all heavily ornamented with layered instrumentation, makes this record wonderfully overpowering as a piece of pop music. In some respects, this was also Bush's first fully realized album, done completely on her own terms, made entirely at her own 48-track home studio, to her schedule and preferences, and delivered whole to EMI as a finished work that history is important, helping to explain the sheer presence of the album's most striking element - the spirit of experimentation at every turn, in the little details of the sound. If this sounds like heady stuff, it could be, but Bush never lets the material get too far from its pop trappings and purpose. But Hounds of Love was more carefully crafted as a pop record, and it abounded in memorable melodies and arrangements, the latter reflecting idioms ranging from orchestrated progressive pop to high-wattage traditional folk and at the center of it all was Bush in the best album-length vocal performance of her career, extending her range and also drawing expressiveness from deep inside of herself, so much so that one almost feels as though he's eavesdropping at moments during "Running Up That Hill." Hounds of Love is actually a two-part album (the two sides of the original LP release being the now-lost natural dividing line), consisting of the suites "Hounds of Love" and "The Ninth Wave." The former is steeped in lyrical and sonic sensuality that tends to wash over the listener, while the latter is about the experiences of birth and rebirth.
Kate Bush's strongest album to date also marked her breakthrough into the American charts, and yielded a set of dazzling videos as well as an enviable body of hits, spearheaded by "Running Up That Hill," her biggest single since "Wuthering Heights." Strangely enough, Hounds of Love was no less complicated in its structure, imagery, and extra-musical references (even lifting a line of dialogue from Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon for the intro of the title song) than The Dreaming, which had been roundly criticized for being too ambitious and complex.
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