FEATURE:
The Wild, Wind and Water
How East Wickham Farm and a Home Studio Impacted the Nature and Natural Elements of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love
__________
I hadn’t thought about it before…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at her family home, East Wickham Farm
but, when reading the new MOJO, there are two separate articles. One relates to East Wickham Farm and the studio Bush had built to record Hounds of Love. The other discusses the album’s second side suite, The Ninth Wave. Jim Irvin writes how there are pearls of wisdom through the suite. It is about a woman who is lost and abandoned at sea looking for rescue. He discusses the album version of The Ninth Wave and the representation of it in 2014 during Bush’s Before the Dawn residency. The residency sees a helicopter winch Bush from the sea and to safety. The album let’s us know that the heroine is rescued. I always thought that this is a literal rescue of someone who makes it to land. Irvin suggests that, in both cases, this may be another dream or imagination. The suite is so immersive, one can have their own interpretation. The heroine wants to be in her bed and count sheep (And Dream of Sheep). She gets trapped under the ice (Under Ice) and, crucially, she imagines her loved ones waiting for her at home, as the heroine sort of floats above them (Watching You Without Me). Did the woman die during one of these songs? Did the rescue appear as a dream as she was dying? You feel and smell the water and the chill. Does everyone sort of assume that things worked out well, or are there twists and different possibilities that maybe hint at something sadder?
The range and variety of instruments, moods, songs, and vocals really do draw you into The Ninth Wave. It is something that compels and grips you from start to finish! In fact, all of Hounds of Love’s songs make you feel their elements and core. I feel nature and the natural world touches al songs. The second side is about the water, wind, and sky. The sky does come into The Big Sky and Cloudbusting. Rain also comes into that song. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), even though it is not literally about a hill, you do sort of imagine Bush/the heroine out in the open and conquering obstacles and the elements if she/women could swap places with the man/men. I feel the reason why the natural world elements sound so natural is because of East Wickham Farm. The idyllic and homely setting and the studio Bush had built. In MOJO, Mat Snow highlights how the experimental Pop of Hounds of Love is as natural as anything because of where it was recorded. Its sonic stamp is nature and the elements. Before I expand on that, the Kate Bush Encylcopedia has some interview archive that is helpful, where Bush discusses writing the album and having her own studio for the first time:
“The first in my own studio. Another step closer to getting the work as direct as possible. You cut all the crap, don't have all these people around and don't have expensive studio time mounting up. A clean way of working. ('Love, Trust and Hitler'. Tracks (UK), November 1989)
I never was so pleased to finish anything if my life. There were times I never thought it would be finished. It was just such a lot of work, all of it was so much work, you know, the lyrics, trying to piece the thing together. But I did love it, I did enjoy it and everyone that worked on the album was wonderful. And it was really, in some ways, I think, the happiest I've been when I'd been writing and making an album. And I know there's a big theory that goes 'round that you must suffer for your art, you know, ``it's not real art unless you suffer.'' And I don't believe this, because I think in some ways this is the most complete work that I've done, in some ways it is the best and I was the happiest that I'd been compared to making other albums. ('Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love, with Richard Skinner. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Recording at Abbey Road Studios (as she did for 1982’s The Dreaming), Bush could run up £90 an hour! EMI bosses would be anxious and pop their head around to see how their money was being spent. Keen to have more time and freedom to record without feeling budgeted or constrained by finances and deadlines, Bush spent a lot of money putting together a studio that would sort of pay for itself in time. Inspired by her friend Peter Gabriel having his own studio, it was only natural Bush would want to return to her childhood haven and home at East Wickham Farm. Surrounded by peace and an environment that was conducive to prolific writing and very different themes to what we heard on The Dreaming, this studio was a jewel that allowed Bush and her team to create something that was awash with the most beautiful and diverse sounds. She had the space and background not only to compel some of her very best songs. As the producer, she could spec the studio and make sure it had room for her to practice dance, get her consoles in there and, most importantly, have the space and set-up that best suited her as a musician and singer. Doves and pigeons, as Mat Snow wrote, could be found cooing around. There was natural light and this tranquillity and warmth that was not available when Bush was recording in windowless studios and surrounded by the smog and noise of London! Even though Wickham Street in Welling, Kent is not too far from the centre of London, it is a retreat and paradise that seems world away!
Even though Bush’s studio was quite far-removed from the high-tech Abbey Road Studios and London facilities, she did have more flexibility. Musicians would come and go as required, but Bush kept this small team of people she trusted for the most part. Those she could get along with. Bush, perhaps compelled and influenced by what was around her, tried to replicate nature and her surroundings in the studio. Like, she would want something that sounded like trees in the distance. A room in the dairy there “had a tiled floor for hosing down after milking which had an incredible sound”. It is wonderful to picture animals being nearby as Bush laid down these iconic songs. I wonder whether any of the livestock made it into the mix! Including Del Palmer (Bush’s boyfriend and part of her band since before The Kick Inside), various engineers had to make the commute to Welling each morning. Among those were Paul Hardiman. He had to come from Berkshire but, with other commitments, he left before Hounds of Love was finished. Rather than having thew centrality and easy-to-access links you get in London, it must have been a chore to get that far each morning. That said, the engineers were met by Bush’s Weimaraner dogs, Bonnie and Clyde, who would lovingly greet them. Hannah Bush, Kate’s mother, had breakfast ready by ten. Bush’s dad, Robert, would fetch takeaways to keep everyone fed. The hospitality makes it seem more akin to a bed and breakfast! I think that, coupled with the nature and geography around the studio goes into Hounds of Love.
The article from MOJO also brings in Brian Tench (engineer; he also mixed on all tracks bar Hounds of Love and Mother Stands for Comfort). He kind of intimated that there was weed being passed around and smoked during recording. This was no shock, as Bush had a relationship with it since her teenage years, yet it also added to that sense of relative calm and taking inspiration from various soothing ‘sources’, shall we say?! I am not sure what impact that had on her creative process and whether it was that influential, but it was definitely present! Hounds of Love is in its own world. It is amazing to listen to the sound and realise that there were no computers aiding it. Monitor faders were used to obtain a 48-track mix from a 24-track desk. There was technology, but it was nothing on the scale of the best recording studios. Instead, there was a dedicated and hard-working team based around Kate Bush and her musicians. As producer, she was constantly innovating and adding to tracks. Her voice, front and centre, was at its best! Those who were there recall how Bush could change her voice and create all these different characters and accents.
In spite of long hours, a relative lack of high-wend equipment and the pressure (in some ways) of making something more commercial and successful than The Dreaming, it was a really fun and great time. I think that the charms and comfort of East Wickham Farm definitely feeds into the music. Almost an uncredited producer and musician, this rural setting was perfect! There is a lot of nature and the literal setting of where she was in Hounds of Love. I will finish by returning to that opening idea about The Ninth Wave and what Jim Irvin wrote. I love how The Ninth Wave sort of took shape and started life after Bush wrote the third song for Hounds of Love, And Dream of Sheep. That spark of a concept and larger story starting to take shape. Irvin’s piece ends with the finale of The Ninth Wave. Hello Earth, as he says, “relocates her dream to space, watching storms over America and advising all sea-farers to do what she longs to do: “Get out of the water!”. Then, there is the hopeful The Morning Fog. Seemingly rescued from the weather and dire doom, is this just a dream? You get swept up and caught in all the eventfulness. There are many things that make Hounds of Love stand out. I think it has its own ecosystem and world because Bush incorporates so much nature, wind, and water. It has that physicality and biodiversity mixing alongside all the horror and passion. So many emotions, shades, colours and shifts of weather mean that it is almost an event listening to the album. A big reason why Hounds of Love is considered one of the greatest albums ever. As I have theorised, it is the fact that she had such a great setting and studio to record in that she could naturally translate her setting and surroundings into the music. Thanks to MOJO for providing words and inspiration for this new run of features I have written about Hounds of Love! I may return to the album before the year is done but, as The Dreaming is forty on 13th September and there are other Kate Bush things to cover, I am going to be busy! Regardless, what MOJO’s recent spread has cemented in my mind is the fact that The majestic Hounds of Love is…
AN utterly wonderful album.