Let’s take a moment for historical perspective before we begin
\nthis review.<\/p>\n
The last time Kate Bush released a CD, 1993’s
\nThe Red Shoes<\/i>, the number one song for the year was “A Whole
\nNew World” from the Disney movie
\nAladdin<\/i>. The Internet was an infant. Bill Clinton was one
\nyear into his eight-year presidency; Conservative John Major was
\nthree years into his seven year tenure as Prime Minister of Great
\nBritain. We had not heard of 9\/11, home convection ovens, the
\nPlaystation 2 or the XBox, Paris Hilton, the Arizona Diamondbacks,
\nEmeril Lagasse, or ANY of the damned Simpson sisters.<\/p>\n
The last time Kate Bush released what in this reviewer’s opinion
\nwas a GOOD CD (1989’s
\nThe Sensual World<\/i>) was even further back.<\/p>\n
So despite the fact I’m a fan, it was really hard for me to
\nenvision (or is that ensound?) what a new Kate Bush CD would sound
\nlike. I mean, it’s been twelve years; Kate’s gotten married, had a
\nkid, and (one assumes) grown up. Having always appeared somewhat
\nethereal, a creature of Faerie and fancy, what would that kind of
\ngrounding do to her sound?<\/p>\n
One word: breathtaking.<\/p>\n
This is not the Kate Bush we all remember. If I could put it in
\nspiritual or mythological terms, Kate’s moved from Maiden to
\nMother. There is a simple strength to her sound that was not there
\nbefore. Her website calls this the most difficult album she’s ever
\ndone, and I can see why; Aerial is almost naked in its
\ndocumentation of Kate’s maturity and growth. There are still
\nmoments of typical Kate fancy, but this is stripped down, basic,
\nand simply beautiful.<\/p>\n
This is a much more acoustic CD than anything Kate’s done
\nbefore. There’s a lot of times when it’s just her and her piano,
\nclear documentation of the sound that everyone from Tori Amos to
\nVanessa Carlton has built on. It’s also a gentler CD; the
\nproduction spare and elegant, the instrumentation somewhat muted.
\nThere’s no “The Big Sky” or “Constellation Of The Heart” here;
\nAerial<\/i> is introspective and pristine in its simplicity.<\/p>\n
But oh, the songs. And oh, the voice.<\/p>\n
Kate’s voice is even greater than it was before. She may have
\nlost a couple of notes in the higher register; somehow I doubt she
\ncould hit those dog-torturing crescendos in “Wuthering Heights”
\nnowadays, though I might be wrong. But when she opens up and sings
\n— the intro of the unbelievably lovely “Nocturn” comes to mind —
\nthere’s a sense of barely restrained power and of wonder. This is
\nnot the girl who sang “James And The Cold Gun”; this is a woman in
\nher full power, and it’s a magnificent thing.<\/p>\n
The songs and the lyrics are wonderful as well.
\nAerial<\/i> is, in many ways, a succession of powerful images. An
\nentire love song to what I presume is her son (“Bertie”); the
\nincredible poetry of “Learning To Be Invisible” (‘You stand in
\nfront of a million doors \/ And each one holds a million more \/
\nCorridors that lead to the world of the invisible \/ Corridors that
\ntwist and turn \/ Corridors that blister and burn’); “The Painter’s
\nLink,” “The Architect’s Dream” — if there is a theme to Aerial,
\nit’s about frozen moments of time. And it’s wonderful.<\/p>\n
Get this CD. Now. It’s exhilarating, sobering, and a true work
\nof art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":27265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6100],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38625","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kate-bush","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38625"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38625"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}