FEATURE:
Better the Second Time Around?
A Return to Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut
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ON 16th May…
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush’s ninth studio album, Director’s Cut, turns eleven. I wanted to return to this work, as it was her follow-up to 2005’s double album, Aerial. She released a second album late in 2011, 50 Words for Snow. As we look ahead to see if she will release another album, I am going to nod back to an incredible album. Something that she had never done before. Released on her Fish People label, it is made up of songs from her earlier albums, The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993), which have been remixed and restructured; three of which were re-recorded completely. Bush re-recorded all of the lead vocals and some of the backing vocals. The drum tracks were also re-recorded. Bush was not entirely happy with the sound and production of the songs she selected. Thinking of Director’s Cut as a new album, the songs blend seamlessly. It is not like she has shoved old tracks together to make them fit. She approached the project like a new album and, as such, there is this unity, flow and consistency where one can view the known tracks in a new light. I was eager to mark the eleventh anniversary of an album that, I think, is underrated. Some felt that Director’s Cut didn’t need to exist – in the sense the original tracks are better, and we can enjoy them on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Featuring musicians like her brother, Paddy, the late Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, and her other half, Dan McIntosh, Director’s Cut sounds incredible! An album well worth grabbing on vinyl, go and listen to the wonderful re-imagining of songs that you may have initially heard decades ago.
Although there was a bit of publicity, Bush provided many more interviews for 50 Words for Snow. Maybe, knowing that another album was coming, it meant that she wanted to pace herself. I guess there is not a lot to say about an album where we know about the songs. People have heard the originals, so she cannot discuss the origins and stuff like that. Instead, I want to mention a couple of reviews. First, Dig! revisited Director’s Cut last year. There are some segments from their piece that I wanted to drop in here:
“I just kind of felt like there were songs on those two albums that were quite interesting but that they could really benefit from having new life breathed into them,” she told Dimitri Ehrlich for Interview magazine. “There was generally a bit of an edgy sound to it, which was mainly due to the digital equipment that we were using, which was state-of-the-art at the time – and I think everyone felt pressured to be working that way. But I still remain a huge fan of [analogue]. There were elements of the production that I felt were either a little bit dated or a bit cluttered. So, what I wanted to do was empty them out and let the songs breathe more.”
RICHLY REWARDING, EMOTIONALLY OVERWHELMING
Three of the songs (This Woman’s Work, Moments Of Pleasure, Rubberband Girl) were re-recorded completely for Director’s Cut, while the drums on all of the tracks were replaced by studio ace Steve Gadd (Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan). Danny Thompson was brought in on bass, and new backing vocals were provided by Mica Paris, Jacob Thorn and Kate’s son, Bertie McIntosh. Most importantly, Bush herself re-recorded her lead vocals for each of the song. Taken together, the overhauls give a new perspective on the material – the studio sheen associated with the late 80s and early 90s is stripped back, and the songs feel warmer and more welcoming. What’s more, they better suit Bush’s more mature, less dramatic vocals, bringing out new meaning in her lyrics.
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
The only song with “new” lyrics was Flower Of The Mountain (originally recorded as The Sensual World’s title track), which, in place of her original lyrics, now used an extract from James Joyce’s Ulysses – just as Bush has originally conceived the song. While the writer’s estate had blocked her from using his text back in 1989, come the recording of Director’s Cut, she was finally granted permission. Joyce’s words – drawn from the novel’s closing soliloquy by Molly Bloom – helped transform the track from a glossy, radio-friendly single into something more considered and languid. A similar effect was achieved on much of the rest of Director’s Cut, notably with a moving take on Moments Of Pleasure which, once an ecstatic celebration of friends and family who had passed away, had been transformed into a hushed elegy.
Meanwhile, Bush saved the most radical reinvention for one of her most-loved songs, This Woman’s Work. Recast as an ethereal ambient ballad, with Bush’s lower vocal range and thoughtful delivery lending it an air of tangible vulnerability, the re-recording also demonstrated Bush’s artistic confidence – at this point in her career, she was free to follow her muse without considering a song’s hit potential. The results led to some glorious music.
Released on 16 May 2011, Director’s Cut may at first have seemed like a curio, but a closer listen reveals a richly rewarding, often emotionally overwhelming set that emphasises how creative and headstrong Bush remained as a writer, musician and producer at the top of her game”.
I am going to conclude with a couple of positive reviews. Though there were one or two mixed reviews, the overall reception was positive. It was brave tackle some much-loved tracks and release an album of this nature. Giving fresh life and meaning to songs like Top of the City and Lily, Director’s Cut is an essential album – not only for Kate Bush fans, but for everyone. The Guardian had this to say about Bush’s 2011 release:
“In the solitary phone interview she gave to promote her first album in six years, Kate Bush offered these TV appearances to explain why she was only giving a solitary phone interview to promote her first album in six years. Under the circumstances, she suggested, wouldn't you push off to the land of do-as-you-please as soon as possible? Nothing, it seems, inspires inscrutable behaviour quite like the bloke off That's Life! quizzing you about your pimples.
In 2011, with the whole nonpareil musical genius/dippy woman who says "wow" issue firmly sorted out in most people's minds, her behaviour seems to grow more inscrutable still. Her new album, which admittedly took only half as long to make as its predecessor, isn't actually a new album, despite Bush's insistence to the contrary: it consists entirely of new versions of songs from 1989's The Sensual World and 1993's The Red Shoes. In fairness, you can see why she's chosen to point them up. They tend to be overlooked in her oeuvre, more because they separate her twin masterpieces Hounds of Love and Aerial than because of their content, although The Red Shoes is perhaps more muddled than you might expect, given her legendary perfectionism. Nevertheless, the decision seems to have bamboozled even her diehard fans, whose trepidation was not much mollified by the single Deeper Understanding. Again, you can see why she wants to point it up: its lyric about abandoning social interaction in order to hunch over a computer seems very prescient in the age of Facebook and Twitter. But the new version's decision to overwhelm the haunting vocals of Trio Bulgarka with Kate Bush doing one of her patented Funny Voices through an Auto-Tune unit seems questionable at best.
In fact, it's the only moment when you can honestly say the rerecording pales next to the original. At worst, they sound as good as their predecessors, which leaves you wondering what the point is, even as you succumb to their manifold charms. It was obviously a bind that the Joyce estate refused permission to use Molly Bloom's concluding soliloquy from Ulysses as the lyrics to The Sensual World, but whether it's a vastly better song for finally having them in place of Bush's facsimile is rather a moot point. Song of Solomon, on which Bush finally abandoned her apparently bottomless store of metaphors for female sexuality in favour of a direct demand for a shag – "Don't want your bullshit," she cries, "I'll come in a hurricane for you" – is a fantastic song whether the rhythm track features pattering tom-toms or a lightly brushed snare. Occasionally, the changes genuinely add something, usually by taking things away. The force of The Red Shoes' depiction of Bush's troubled relationship with the creative impulse was always a little blunted by its presentation as a kind of perky Irish jig: with the Celtic pipes shifted to the background, it sounds sinister and more urgent. Moments of Pleasure's rumination on death is more introverted and affecting stripped of its dramatic orchestration, while This Woman's Work – the rerecording of which caused the most unease among fans – is amazing: emptier, darker and quieter than before, it's even more heart-rending. Given that the original was heart-rending enough to soundtrack a charity campaign against child abuse, that's no mean feat.
Is it worth spending six years making an emotionally wrenching song slightly more emotionally wrenching? Hmm. If Director's Cut really was a new album, if you were hearing these songs for the first time, then it probably would be considered among Kate Bush's masterpieces: certainly, the sheer quality of the songwriting makes every recent female artist who has been compared to her look pretty wan by comparison. But you're not, which means the Director's Cut ultimately amounts to faffing about, albeit faffing about of the most exquisite kind. Still, as anyone who's watched her putting up with Richard Stilgoe will tell you, Kate Bush has earned the right to do whatever she wants”.
The BBC were impressed and overwhelmed when they sat down with the wonderful Director’s Cut. It is an album that I keep listening to and get something different from every time I dive in:
“When Deeper Understanding emerged as the first evidence of Kate Bush’s new album of revisions, the instant reaction was surprise tinged with anger. How dare she play with our memories? How dare she use Auto-Tune on the chorus vocal? "Butchered" and "almost unforgivable" cried the fansites. But as Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens have already shown, Auto-Tune – a pitch-shifting tool typically used to mask defects – can also be used for beauty. It’s not as if Bush’s own vocal was altered. Instead, it’s just the song’s computer voice, which now resembles 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000 rather than a demo on a kid’s Casio. A bonus two-minute coda of Talk Talk-style folk-jazz floatiness extends the mood of blissful angst. Butchered? More like reborn.
The problem is less that Bush’s new album consists of old songs than the fact she’s only released one album of new ones in 18 years. She’s had the urge to tinker before, sprucing up Wuthering Heights for her 1986 greatest hits, The Whole Story. All the vocals and drums on Director’s Cut – totalling four tracks from 1989’s The Sensual World, seven from 1993’s The Red Shoes – are new; if such a term existed, you could say the overall execution has been to ‘de-80s-fy’ the originals. Gone are the gated drums, the keyboard presets, the Synclavier washes; in comes a softer, golden glow. Minus the choc-box orchestra (plus subtly altered lyrics), the rest of Moments of Pleasure emerges into the light, shaded by a solemn choir. Rubberband Girl, which in context sounds like a knees-up down her local boozer, comes over like the work of a totally different band (weirdly, that band is now The Rolling Stones).
The Sensual World’s title-track, now re-named Flower of the Mountain and borrowing Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s novel Ulysses as Bush intended (she was originally denied permission), is another major alteration. Yet, musically, it’s rather more cosmetic. Just as Bush sounds in great voice – richer, bolder, brighter, wiser – so the re-cast Lily and The Red Shoes’ title-track follow suit, but they’re hardly re-inventions. As much as it’s fascinating to hear Bush the Elder look back at Bush the Younger, is the tinkering worth a full album? Yes, because it’s a sign Bush the Artist is still alive (she’s working on new songs too) and Director’s Cut (a less prosaic title would have been nice) is a gorgeous body of work. No, because it’s writer’s block by any other name. No, because it’s not radical enough a move. But if Deeper Understanding raised hackles, imagine if Kate had gone dubstep or collaborated with Odd Future. World wars have broken out over less”.
On 16th May, it will be eleven years since Bush put out Director’s Cut. Although one or two of the songs she reimagines do not exceed the originals (Deeper Understanding among them), I do love the fact that she revitalises a few tracks that might have been overlooked first time around. Few people would have imagined that Kate Bush would release another album…
ONLY six months later.