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Observer: Kate Bush: the return of pop’s most resonant voice

An article from Tim Adams in today’s Observer, probably to make up for the fact they didn’t get an interview. Thankfully, though a mite disinformed, it is not the trad hatchet job brewed up for those circumstances:

The adjective that has always snagged on Bush, along with the requisite “ethereal”, is “guileless”. She follows, we are invited to believe, her instincts in a childlike way, mixing fantasy and self-absorption and surprising everyone with the results. Her contrivances are, in this reading, anything but contrived. In some of this, you might argue that her silence has been a powerful ally. The air of mystery that she conjured as a 19-year-old has been preserved by the recent parsimony of her output. Bush has successfully tapped into the media’s working definition of a recluse: someone who has no particular desire to be interviewed for magazines.”

Kate interviewed by Andy Gill in the Independent and gives five star review

Andy Gill, whom we remember from the inkie era way back when, interviews Kate for the Independent:

I have a theory that there are still parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age of between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up,” she explains. “I think our essence is there in a much more powerful way when we’re children, and if you’re lucky enough to be treated reasonably well, and can hang onto who you are, you do have that at your core for the rest of your life. I guess that’s what I meant, really: it’s not that I actually think of myself as a little girl, but she is right in my core.

Andy Gill also gives the album a five star review:

the individual tracks seeming to coalesce gently, like snow gathering in drifts: most consist of simple, unhurried piano parts, underscored by ambient synth pads, strings, and occasionally a touch of jazzy reeds, or Oriental-sounding twang. The result is a lush, immersive work which is sonically more homogeneous than her earlier albums, reflecting the conceptual solidity of its wintry theme, in which fantastical, mythic narratives are allowed to take shape under the cover of its snowy blanket…

 

Slug Magazine: detailed review of Director’s Cut

Director's Cut inner sleeve artwork

This is a good read. From Dean O’Hillis in SLUG Magazine (Salt Lake Underground) another very positive review of Director’s Cut. The most detailed of the recent North American reviews that we’ve seen. Read it here. (Thanks to Jon West)

UPDATE: Collin Kelley has reminded us of his own detailed review of Director’s Cut, published at Soldout, which you can also read here, thanks Collin.

Q&A with Kate in the current Classic Rock magazine

Classic Rock magazineThe current edition of Classic Rock magazine has a Q&A with Kate. The magazine describes this interview as follows: “The first lady of art-rock on resurrecting the past, reclusiveness and the royal family.”

Apparently Kate mentions that she is using old equipment to make her next album, aka KB10 (and now also affectionately known to fans as ‘Bonemeal’ due to Kate’s recent interview with Mark Radcliffe in which she praised the song-enhancing properties of leaving a bag of bonemeal sitting on her piano!).

Kate says: “I’m using the most archaic gear I could get my hands on. I’m working with analogue tape and old bits of valve equipment, a lot of that old stuff has a great sound.”

The issue is in the shops now.

Catch-up #4 Spin magazine gives Director’s Cut 9/10!

Spin magazine in the US has given Kate’s new album a glowing review and 9 out of 10 stars. We particularly love this summing up: “…the lustiest record in this ever-bodacious cougar’s canon.” We hope Spin is looking forward to this ever-bodacious cougar’s next album as much as we are! Read the full review here. (thanks to Ross Drucker)

Catch-up #1 Kate talks to Interview Magazine!

Kate and kitty

Hello! We’re back to the land of KB updates after our two week hangover from The Sensual Walk! We’ve missed out on telling you about a few happenings so here’s the first of several catch up posts!

Kate has been interviewed by Interview Magazine as part of the North American promotional push for Director’s Cut. As well as talking about the album, Kate recalls the influence of her late father, Dr Robert Bush: “My father was always playing the piano. He played all kinds of music—Gershwin, all kinds of stuff. He was really a hugely encouraging force to me when I was little. I used to write loads of songs when I was really young, and he was always there to listen to them for me. And it was a really wonderful thing that he did because he made me feel that they had some worth, even when they didn’t really. And he was always very honest with me. He’d say if he didn’t think perhaps one song was that good, or he liked that one. What was great was that he’d give me that time, and would always come and listen when we’d written something. So, you know, he was fantastic because he gave me the sense that he believed in me.”

Find out what Kate thinks of Ricky Gervais, Lady Gaga and more, the full interview is here!

New Canadian interview, plus Marianne Faithfull praises Kate!

We’ll have a full North American Director’s Cut round up soon, apologies for the slow down in updates, it’s been busy! Kate gives yet another new interview to the national Canadian weekly magazine Macleans, here.  Among other things they discuss the track Lily “….based on one of her real-life heroines, the late Lily Cornford, a noted spiritual healer in London with whom Bush became close friends in the ’90s. “She was one of those very rare people who are intelligent, intuitive and kind,” she says of Cornford, who believed in mental colour healing—a process whereby patients would be restored to health by seeing various hues. “I was really moved by Lily and impressed with her strength and knowledge, so it led to a song—which she thought was hilarious.

Lily

The interviewer, Elio Iannacci, also spoke to singer Marianne Faithfull about Kate: “On the phone from Paris, famous fan Marianne Faithfull notes that Bush’s four-octave range should be regarded as a “national treasure.” “My favorite instrument in the whole world is the human female voice, and Kate Bush is one of the reasons why. It is, by far, a Stradivarius,” Faithfull says. “Which is why she rarely deals with the press or isn’t in a rush to record. She’s one of the few who can be above all that.”

Dublin Gazette reviews Director’s Cut “a wonderful thing”

Glowing review of Kates’s new album here from Rob Heigh at the Dublin Gazette newspaper site. Also a nice mention for a little event I’m organising on June 18th. Read it here.

And currently the biggest selling album in Tower Records Dublin is…

Tower Records, Dublin, June 1st 2011

Kate enters the GLOBAL album chart at number 7!!

Several chart sites are featuring this remarkable placing – Director’s Cut has entered the global album chart at number 7!! Congratulations yet again to everyone at Fish People!

The album has gone Top 40  in the following countries: UK (number 2), Czech Republic (number 4), Ireland (number 4), the Netherlands (6), Germany (11), Sweden (12), Norway (17), Switzerland (23), Poland (28), France (34), Austria (35) and New Zealand (38).

Global album chart

USA / Canadian release of Director’s Cut – album out now, finally!

Director's Cut

Our US and Canadian friends have waited oh so patiently to get their hands on Kate’s acclaimed ninth studio album, Director’s Cut. We hope you’re finally enjoying it guys – here’s what the official site has said:

Unfortunately, our North American distribution partner has had some quality issues manufacturing the physical versions of Director’s Cut. As a result the CD and Vinyl release date for Canada and the United States has been postponed until the 30th May.

Listen again to last week’s brace of Kate interview segments on BBC radio!

Kate Bush week on BBC 6Music

Update: Kate enters the Irish album charts at number 4! Congratulations again Kate! Wow. In other news, big thanks to Louise for compiling these! Kate’s conversation with Mark Radcliffe was featured every day last week on BBC 6music and now you can listen by clicking on the following BBC iPlayer links and forwarding to the indicated time in the stream. These contain unheard bits, so well worth a listen – they will only be available to hear on the iPlayer for a few more days. Listening to these is a reminder of just what a fantastic couple of months we’ve had watching the Director’s Cut project unfold.

Top Ten Reasons to Love Kate Bush

From Daiana Feuer in todays’s LA Weekly:

“Kate Bush is one of the most important female musicians of all time. As an innovator and producer of her own sound, she’s sort of like the female Prince. It’s about the unitard. It’s about her googly eyeballs and interpretative dance moves, her music videos, and her way with a synthesizer. It’s about this 5 foot 3 woman standing up to the music industry and her refusal to let anyone make her be sexier than she wanted to be–which was plenty sexy as long as it was on her own terms. Bush’s ninth studio album, Director’s Cut, debuted today at #2 in the UK. It’s a re-imagining of some songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s Red Shoes, and it’s a good opportunity to revisit her legacy. Here are The Top 10 Reasons To Love Kate Bush ...”

Director’s Cut enters UK Album Chart at no.2!

We are happy to confirm that Director’s Cut has debuted at no.2 in the UK album sales chart. This is a huge achievement and we all offer massive congratulations to Kate and everybody else involved in the recording and promotion of the album.

This is Kate’s tenth chart album, which with the exception 1978’s Lionheart have all been top 3.

Well done Kate!

Sean Dave Krys Peter

| BBC News | NME | Britscene |

Director’s Cut: Italian media round-up!

Antonello has sent us a round-up of reports and mentions for Kate’s new album that have been surfacing in Italy. They are mostly very receptive of Kate’s latest work, though a couple of them just report the official Fish People statement that was out before its release. One surprising happening has been what Antonello calls an exquisite review from the official site of the Catholic Church! Read it here. (thanks Antonello!)

Kate as Marion in a scene from Director's Cut album artwork

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