RUNNING WITH THE HOUNDS

For a brief article to do justice to Kate Bush’s 1985 magnum opus Hounds Of Love it would need to be written in colour. It would have washes of luminous chalk, splashes of oil pastel, shafts of vivid acrylics and tendrils of lava lamp pink. Shapes would pulsate with passion, creep along midnight forest trails and spark with ecstasy, or perhaps rage. In this world poetic imagination dances with pointed observation, pop is in bed with progressive music, a woman both whimsical and wild gently breathes out a hurricane while doe-eyed dogs snuggle up to her. Welcome to the captivating world of one of the most important British artists, ever.

After the disappointingly modest success of The Dreaming (1982), many artists would have retreated to the familiar; returned to the wide path of pop orthodoxy and made something the public could easily embrace. But that was not Kate Bush’s way. It was never her way.

Hounds Of Love is daring, experimental and entirely unique. That it boasted not one, but four singles—three of which made the UK Top 20—is astonishing. One of those singles, "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)", was Top 10 in the UK and Australia in 1985 and, on the back of inclusion in the TV series Stranger Things, a #1 hit in 2022. The parent album is, thus far, Bush’s most successful and frequently appears on Best Album Of All Time lists. Those last two achievements speak volumes about both the acclaim for Hounds Of Love and how timelessly captivating its eccentric charms really are.

The kinetic energy of the album is on display right from the opening of the first track, "Running Up That Hill". This uncanny marriage of art-rock and synth-pop has an infectious momentum that continues throughout the first side of the LP. The rhythmic fusillade of "Hounds Of Love" follows. As one listens and gazes at the sensual cover portrait of Kate and her canines, one can’t help but feel the pull of faerie. The heroine is running away once more… from baying predators or from intimate love? Perhaps she is leading us towards her own mystical world? "The Big Sky" and "Cloudbursting" share an atmospheric theme; the lightness of imagination and the heaviness of misunderstanding. Bush’s lyrics are both evocative and symbolic; her music is detailed yet potent.

Side two of the album is a suite entitled The Ninth Wave. Immersing oneself is like watching an arty film. Not everything is obvious or clear, but the journey is intriguing and ultimately moving. Across the seven pieces comprising the suite we hear many of Kate Bush’s favoured styles and strategies. The deft use of percussion for dramatic effect, deployment of synthesised tones (she was an early adopter of the Fairlight computer music instrument), art-rock bursts, and tributes to her Celtic heritage. There is classical ambition and a theatricality that some may find overbearing. But then, Ms Bush has always been joyously over the top. Here her vision is expressed more cohesively than on any other album in her catalogue.

Hounds Of Love was recorded entirely in her home studio and delivered to EMI as a complete work. That it continues to beguile and delight remains a wondrous achievement.

© Bruce Jenkins—November 2022