One of the Hounds of Love songs lacking either bass or guitar, “Cloudbusting” is propelled by a sparse, repeating string phrase and an insistent drum pattern, which in combination with the chorus (“I just know that something good is going to happen / I don’t know when / But just saying it could even make it happen”) imbues the song with an oddly uplifting power given the subject matter. But critical reception for the album was mixed, and the public was even less kind. It would also be the first album not to include any of the backlog of songs she’d written prior to 1978. Cloudbusting - C#m7, Badd9, A6/9, F#7(sus4), And Dream of Sheep - F#m/A, B(add4)/A, F#7(sus4), C#m7, C#m9, Bush uses a plethora of decorated chords to convey the concepts of Hounds of Love and The Ninth Wave - dissonant suspensions and added notes to portray the negative aspects such as Reich's arrest and the narrator's struggles at sea and on the ice, As a result of being self-taught, Bush is not confined by functional rules and progressions, Bush's music is tonal but not simply diatonic and functional - it is often modally inflected through chord choice and progressions, Cloudbusting - Modal C# minor - the mystery of Wilhelm Reich and his eventual arrest, And Dream of Sheep - Verses in Modal C# minor, choruses in E (Relative Major) - parallel to the shift in tone from one of peacefulness as the narrator awaits rescue to the realisation that help isn't coming, Under Ice - Modal A minor - the ambiguity of the narrators state of mind - seeing herself under the ice, Material Girl - simple, basic C major tonality, Cloudbusting and Under Ice - both pieces have no modulations, And Dream of Sheep - modulates to the relative major for the choruses, And Dream of Sheep - use of melismas throughout, especially within the coda: 'deeper and deeper' - connotes the feeling sinking helplessly in the ocean - the concept of The Ninth Wave, Wuthering Heights - frequent use of melismas e.g. Interestingly, the EQ the 2018 remasters is very close to the EQ used for the 2014 Audio Fidelity vinyl release, based on a comparison of the former and a hi-res rip of the latter. Very impressive indeed.Could have done without the 12" versions of the previous songs at the end of the disc but some of the other extras are great. Buy it; you won't be sorry. When Reich defied the FDA, he was sentenced to two years in prison, where he died of a heart attack. As fans scooped up copies of Hounds of Love (the first Bush album released on vinyl, cassette, and CD simultaneously), the music press lavished the album with praise. These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. It’s just the idea of taking a piece of music on a journey, which was what opera and classical music used to do all the time.” Sonically inventive throughout, the individual tracks that compose “The Ninth Wave” are by turns gentle (“And Dream of Sheep”), jarring (“Waking the Witch”), hypnotic (“Watching You Without Me”), and joyous (“The Morning Fog”). Famously “discovered“ by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour when a family friend played her demo tape for the Floyd guitarist, Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside, was released in 1978. While her eclecticism is welcomed and rewarded in her homeland her genius goes ignored here — a situation that is truly a shame for an artist so adventurous and naturally theatrical. The resulting sound was more linear and atmospheric than anything Bush had created before. My boyfriend got me into Kate Bush. For those interested, I did compare several original vinyl rips to the 1985 CDs, and both formats seem to share the same Cooper mastering. 'cold' & 'window' in chorus and 'grab' in middle section - Cathy's passionate desperation, And Dream of Sheep - Opens with perfect 5ths - the peacefulness of floating out at sea, And Dream of Sheep - Coda contains frequent use of major 6ths - the shift in tone as the narrator loses hope and sinks, Under Ice - Mostly syllabic vocal line - the harsh cold of the ice - the concept of The Ninth Wave, Stonemilker - Syllabic vocals with a staccato delivery, Cloudbusting - triadic opening intervals to verses, Under Ice - Quasi-pentatonic shapes used in more lyrical melodic sections, Cloudbusting - chorus uses anticipatory syncopation, And Dream of Sheep - Coda has an anacrusic pick-up, Common time w/ use of other time sigs for effect, Cloudbusting - mostly 4/4 but use of 6/4 to extend phrases, And Dream of Sheep - mostly 4/4 with use of 2/4 to extend phrases and 5/4 for dramatic effect - the irregularity of the sea, Wuthering Heights - regular 4/4 metre - the constant wind on the moors, Madonna, Material Girl - complete contrast, simple 4/4 with typical SAW drumbeat, And Dream of Sheep - Coda ending phrase makes use of Scotch Snap/Lombard Rhythm, Under Ice - repeated 10-bar rhythmic unit forms basis of the piece: 4/4 x 2; 3/4 x 5; 4/4 x 3, Unorthodox instrumentation: use of Fairlight CMI, Bouzouki, Balalaika, sound effects, Uillean pipes and Irish whistles, Bush doesn't use traditional 80s rock and pop instruments such as Bass/Electric Guitar and strong Drums, Use of (treated) vocal samples and sound effects, Cloudbusting - use of (treated) vocal samples in the instrumental, spoken word in the coda and ending with steam engine effects - Bush has used these to portray the story of the concept album - train engine could be a reference to cloudbusters, And Dream of Sheep - Spoken vocal sample shortly before verse 2 - shipping information - the narrator is lost at sea, Under Ice - Rumbles and thunderous sounds of an avalanche - narrator is skating on ice, Imogen Heap, Hide and Seek (2005) - use of the Vocoder, (Madonna - Material Girl) Orthodox pop of the 80s = 3min Stock, Aitken & Waterman (SAW) pop songs - drum machine, synthesisers and a catchy tune - a COMPLETE contrast to Bush's creative, experimental music, Björk meshes organic and synthetic - Stonemilker uses a combination of electronic sounds and string arrangements, Hounds of Love is a concept album that was released in 1985, The vinyl was produced with two sides: side one concluded with 'Cloudbusting'; side two is 'The Ninth Wave', 'The Ninth Wave' is a mini-concept album comprising 7 tracks about 'the thoughts of a person drifting alone in the sea at night, battling to stay awake, slipping in and out of consciousness', 'Cloudbusting' is side one; 'And Dream of Sheep' and 'Under Ice' are part of 'The Ninth Wave', 'And Dream of Sheep' - drifting in the sea, awaiting rescue, 'Under Ice' - in a dream-like state, the narrator is skating on ice alone. but this is a fantastic album, especially the "2nd side" the Ninth Wave", Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2017. After using it only sparingly on Never For Ever, Bush “was determined to use its varied sound palette on almost all the songs [on The Dreaming],” as Thompson put it. The DAC/Amp combo was a Schiit Yggdrasil/Ragnarok stack. Once again devoid of either bass or guitar, “Hounds of Love“ is structured around a gated reverb-treated, syncopated drum pattern. Like Hounds it is a complex and multilayered classic. If you only buy one of hers, make it this one, Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2001. I bought this as my daughter is a huge fan and I have never really been, but this is a fantastic album,especially the "2nd side" the Ninth Wave". It’s…through him that we started off with the rhythmic basis that was then built upon.”. Please try again. . Note that this mastering was reused on the 2005 Japanese CD. The GIF below rotates through several Hounds of Love tracks, comparing Har-Bal’s “average power” graphs across the “Black Triangle” CD (grey), a 1.00 peak value CD (green), and a 78.4 peak value CD (yellow)2: It’s not clear why different pressings have such different peak values, but they’re all undoubtedly the same mastering, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given that Cooper is the only one credited on any of the 1985 CDs3. The only Kate Bush album I find underwhelming is Lionheart. There were so many great genres at that time : Punk (Black flag),the Dead, Echo, Brian Eno, Joy Division, Talking Heads, U2, the Cure, Cocteau Twins, ANYWAY.. “I couldn’t bear it after a bit, actually,” Hugh Padgham, the house engineer at London’s Townhouse Studios, told Thompson. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. It’s heady stuff for a pop song. “[On Hounds Of Love] we were using Fairlight and Linn drums a lot, and they’d come out with these funny little sounds which you might think weren’t very interesting, and she’d say, ‘Isn’t that wonderful, isn’t that great?’ She’d make it great, and in a way that’s the mark of a genius, to make something fabulous out of a simple idea. Without enough time to write new material, Bush had to draw on songs rejected for The Kick Inside. My first impression was wow, the producer really messed this up, especially the way whispered lines are just as loud as shouted vocals. I've tried so many versions through the years and have never been happy with the sound. The Dreaming was a stunning artistic and sonic leap forward for Bush. Thanks, love that album. Simply put....this is one of the greatest CDs that I own out of over 500. It was a commercial success and marked a return to the public eye for Bush after the relatively poor sales of her previous album, 1982's The Dreaming.The album's lead single, "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)", became one of Bush's biggest hits. Repeated listens, especially on a great stereo system like a Bose, truly reward the listener. Some claim that early K.B. I was using different instruments, and everything was changing; and I felt that really the best thing to do would be to make it completely different.”, In addition to being her first solo production, The Dreaming was Bush’s first true Fairlight album. But by the time she released Hound of Love seven years later, at the ripe old age of 26, Bush was portrayed by the press as a washed-up relic. I didn’t want to make vinyl comparisons central to the article, since TBVO focuses on digital mastering. As Michael Moran wrote in his 2011 tribute to the Fairlight, “The Fairlight sampled in mono, with a fairly grainy sounding 8 bit resolution and had a bandwidth of around 2100 Hz to 30 kHz. 3. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. “Discovering the Fairlight gave me a whole new writing tool, as well as an arranging tool…,” Bush explained in 1990, “With a Fairlight you’ve got everything, a tremendous range of things. In reality, Bush spent 1983 turning the barn on East Wickham Farm, her parents’ suburban London home, into a 48-track studio, complete with two Studer A80 24-track machines, her own Fairlight, and a Soundcraft mixing desk (later replaced with a state-of-the-art Solid State Logic board). Interestingly, the EQ the 2018 remasters is very close to the EQ used for the 2014 Audio Fidelity vinyl, 5. Personally Hounds Of Love is not my favourite Kate Bush album but it is very good, it was also great to see her in concert a few years back. The second side is pure bliss, a medley of shorted and assorted songs, a bit like on The Beatles Abbey Road. Added the numerical report as a rar for interest. Once I hear it, it's stuck in my head for days. If I were allowed to swear, I’d say that Hounds of Love is f***ing brilliant, but me mum won’t let me.... All human life contained herein. We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2014. This sealed her position as an auteur in the studio and musical genius. “I always felt there was this slightly sort of MOR quality to hi-hats,” she explained. Great article. “I don’t like working in commercial studios,” she explained to Van Heye. "Under Ice", "And Dream of Sheep", "My Lagan Love", "Runnin' Up That Hill", "Hello Earth", "Jig of Life" ... all different, all moving, and all snapshots of Real Life, Dream Life, and Past, Present and Future Lives.