Kate Bush The Dreaming

It is a common misconception that the music scene of the 1980s was little more than a wasteland of synthesisers and mullets (Australian music videos of the period do little to dispel this notion). Yet amid the canned noise and hair crimes, there existed a coterie of unique artists that provided solace for the discerning music lover, a roll-call that included the Smiths, Paul Kelly, the Pogues, Billy Bragg, the Pixies and, of course, Kate Bush.

Bush may be remembered as the spindly 17-year old who debuted at the top of the UK singles chart sometime in the late 70s with the delicious Wuthering Heights, but not many in today’s public are familiar with her other accomplishments. At her best, Kate Bush creates experimental music that is actually a pleasure to listen to. Her only possible rival in this regard is Tom Waits, another 80s maverick – one I hope to cover shortly.

After three albums of precocious pop, Bush released The Dreaming in 1982, the album which marked the beginning of this experimental phase. Neither the public nor the critics knew what to make of the new album and it subsequently flopped. It was eclipsed three years later by the majestic Hounds of Love, arguably the greatest album ever committed to tape (in the humble opinion of this reviewer, at least). But the experimentation of The Dreaming set the benchmark for that later success.
The tone of the album is dark, stark and morbidly romantic, its sound characterised by skeletal guitar riffs and bass-lines, clanking percussion and the eerie coos and tinkles of Kate’s new toy, a Fairlight synthesiser/sampler. Even a bit of Irish folk manages to weave its way through the sonic tapestry. Among the musos lending a hand are big bro and multi-instrumentalist Paddy Bush, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, English folk legend Danny Thompson and Rolf Harris on didgeridoo (and, thankfully, nothing else).

Kate had before shown a flair for the theatrical, and The Dreaming takes it up a notch. Each of the ten tracks is a cross between pop song and performance sketch. Her roles include a Faust figure on the pounding opener In Your Lap, bumbling Cockney bank-robbers on the Brit-ska-flavoured There Goes a Tenner, a Vietcong guerrilla on the explosive Pull Out the Pin, an Aussie hick on the menacing title track and an excessively paranoid home-owner on Get Out of My House, to name but five. Kate’s haphazard vocal stylings, unorthodox key changes and general madwoman antics may be grating to some, but for those with a taste for the whimsical, she’s a gift from heaven.

Hounds of Love may a more coherent, more accessible and perhaps better album, but The Dreaming is a splendid piece of work in its own right and deserves to be rediscovered.

This review was published, with minor alterations, in Craccum, Issue 9, 2006.