Kate Bush – Director’s Cut

Any new album from National Treasure (©) Kate Bush is still rare enough to be considered an event. It’s been 6 years since she delivered the admirable Aerial and that was only the 8^th album in a 33 year career and came a full 12 years after her 7^th, 1993’s The Red Shoes (wow - what a lot of numbers!). With typical singularity (and as the title of this set alludes) we’re not actually getting new material this time around though; Director’s Cut consists of 11 songs culled from the aforementioned Red Shoes and its immediate predecessor, 1989’s The Sensual World, which Kate has decided to rework. All of the vocal & drum tracks are brand new (a wise choice with the latter as the Linn drums of the period have not aged too well), lyrics & arrangements have been tinkered with and 3 tracks have been completely rearranged & rerecorded.

It’s a fun, if pointless, game trying to figure out why Kate has decided on this course of action right now. Is it possibly a case of writer’s block? Unlikely, I think – she’s not under any pressure to release anything these days and there’s plenty of invention on display here. It seems that the copyright of the original recordings has reverted to her recently, but it also seems unlikely that this is the primary motive as: (a) her own label, Fish People, is still distributed by EMI and (b) she is so venerated, and her output so sparse, that it’s hard to imagine that she would have been prevented from releasing such a project if she had wanted to previously.

Perhaps the opener Flower of the Mountain could be an indication. This is a new, renamed version of the title track from Sensual World, a song originally built upon text taken from the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses but amended to Kate’s own lyrics when Joyce’s estate refused permission to use the extract. Apparently she was unhappy at her efforts (“Well, I’m not James Joyce am I?”), approached the estate again when coming to work on this project, was granted permission this time around and has restored the song to its original concept. Although the end result is a beautiful, swooning arrangement, I think she’s actually sold her own abilities short here: the original Sensual World managed to crystallise the mood of Ulysses succinctly in much the same way as the amazing Wuthering Heights did over 3 decades ago.

Aside from the above restoration I found most of the real interest here in the songs that were completely reworked. One of these is This Woman’s Work, possibly her most loved ballad of all and used so poignantly in NSPCC adverts. It was a brave decision to redefine this particular track and what is presented here is, in many ways, stunning: it’s been slowed, stretched, bent, darkened and stripped down, leaving an eerie echo long after it finishes.

Immediately following is Moments of Pleasure, also in a completely new version. If anything, the transformation here is even more startling. The original Red Shoes version always sounded, to me, like somebody getting their holiday photos back from Happy Snaps and smiling at pleasant recent memories. The new version brings to mind the same person finding those same photos buried in a box in the loft 18 years later and gazing at them in a much more melancholy light. If This Woman’s Work now sounds sonically close to Tori Amos then the new Moments of Pleasure is slap-bang in Tom Waits territory!

There are other highlights here, the changes being more subtle but the overall effect still positive. The Song of Solomon – already one of Red Shoes’ strongest songs– has been given a slightly deeper vocal, is sequenced straight after the opener and extends the early erotic tone of the album well (as does Lily, in which Kate really lets rip!). The Red Shoes (the track) has had a minor but very effective remix – it retains the Gaelic jig elements of the original but these have been pushed down in the mix (think of the guitars on early Joy Division) and this has made the song feel more intense, manic and closer in spirit to the Powell/Pressburger movie.

Deeper Understanding is one cut which, perhaps, could have benefited from a tad more modification. While the opening has a somewhat prescient prophetic air (“As the people here grow colder, I turn to my computer and spend my evenings with it like a friend”) the later sections now seem positively quaint , both lyrically (“I pick up the phone and go ‘execute’”) and musically (the burbling of a PC modem PSTN dial-up)... but it's still a lovely song:

With Never Be Mine, Top of the City & And So is Love it’s definitely a case of “spot the difference” from their original incarnations, but this triumvirate hang together well in the context of the album; Rubberband Girl, however, does attain a new veneer. This is the third completely new recording and, while it’s still quite a throwaway song (intentionally, I'm sure) it now chugs along like a 60s rhythm & blues pub-band (a very good one) with some tasty harmonica that Dr. Feelgood would have been proud of.

This is an interesting experiment and, if rumours are anything to go by, works as a warm-up for forthcoming new material along with (deep breath) possibly the chance to see Kate live for the first time since 1979!

Director’s Cut is available in just about every format just about everywhere just about now. If you have cash to splash I’d recommend the 3xCD pack, which contains a (really well) remixed Red Shoes and the original (sublime) Sensual World.