New Australian and Italian interviews with Kate! Plus Billboard reviews Wild Man

And here we are again. So very soon after Director’s Cut, the promotional push for another studio album from Kate is now well under way.  The latest interview to support the release of 50 Words For Snow next month has been published in The Australian. In the interview with Iain Shedden, Kate talks about how her new album came about:

“It was something I had wanted to do for a few years…but it was more ideas rather than something concrete. I suppose it was rumbling around in the back of my head while I was doing Director’s Cut, but I couldn’t really get my head around it until I got Director’s Cut out of the way…I’d liked the idea of making a kind of wintry record for some time, but then it got honed down to the idea of focusing on snow…I think everyone loves snow unless you happen to be snowed in for months on end. It has a real magical quality about it. Obviously not all the songs are about snow, but there is that thread running through it…”

Kate says she doesn’t want anyone to mistake this for a “Christmas” album: “That is one concern I had when people heard the title and when they got to see the artwork on the cover . . . that they would think it was a Christmas album…people don’t seem to be saying that, which is great because it isn’t. If they did think that they’d be disappointed.” 

Kate is thrilled by her guests on the album. On Stephen Fry, who features on the album’s title track, she tells The Australian: “What I was trying to do was find someone who had a great voice of authority. The idea of the song was that we would start off with straightforward words and then come up with completely ridiculous ones. That really tickles me because it’s meant to be fun.”

Kate also talks about Elton John’s performance on ‘Snowed in at Wheeler Street’: “I love his performance. He has a fantastic voice. If he had said no I don’t know who I would have asked, but luckily he said yes. I was really lucky that everyone I asked to be on the album agreed to do it.”

In Italy, the magazine XL has also published an interview with Kate, although we are still waiting for a translation. In one part of this interview Kate talks abut being flattered by being thought of as an influence on other female artists and also says that she has heard Lady Gaga’s music and thinks she’s great.  Thanks to Louise and to rblazon for pointing these out.

Update: We now have a translation of the XL interview (thanks to Antonello!)

Billboard Magazine has reviewed Wild Man, calling the track “weird and whimiscal” and that it “makes for a wicked headphone atmosphere, with Dan McIntosh’s expressionistic digital guitar curlicues wandering around a crisp Steve Gadd kit and John Giblin bass.” Thanks to Greg Gilligan for the link.