In an almost entirely demystified universe, getting to know Kate Bush is still a hell of an ask. Touchingly eccentric, she belongs to the same exulted class of disappearing artists as Salinger or Pynchon, and we can never be sure if such reclusivity is whether the work is too important or we – the commoners who await – aren’t important enough. No matter. We’re making out like bandits, even if we had to wait over a decade. Yes, there really is a new Kate Bush album, a double album no less, though even while listening to it one can scarcely believe such a thing has come to pass.
Never one for the blandishments of show business, for the past 12 years it seemed entirely plausible that Kate had slipped off, most likely accompanied by Gandalf or Syd Barrett, to some strange English idyll in a world not entirely the same as our own. There were rumours of course. All the usual conspiracies were regularly aired. The Red Shoes, her intricate ‘93 electro-operetta, had done her in. She would never recover or again darken a studio door with her elfin shadow. She was suffering from body dysmorphic syndrome (aren't we all?), unable to look in the mirror as the ravages of age (she’s now 47) took hold, or indeed leave the house.
The truth was rather more mundane. She was on maternity leave, raising her son Bertie and tinkering in the studio these past six years whenever she found the time. We may never know Kate Bush, but we may know this – she’s been very happy, thank you very much. Both parts of Aerial – A Sea Of Honey (the collection she calls ‘Kate songs’) and A Sky Of Honey, a concept album inspired by birdsong and in part, Rolf Harris, are infused with joy.
A Sea almost functions as a brand new retrospective, a classically watery wall of sound with gorgeous pop hooks. There are millions of impossibly beautiful things about it – the hippity hoppity reggae beats across the oceanic pop of ‘King Of The Mountain’, the pretty jangling guitars of ‘Pi’, the bongo sensuality of ‘Joanni’, the Latin noodles on ‘How To Be Invisible’ , the familiar Hey Nonny Nonny Ophelia groove of ‘Bertie’, an achingly sweet ode to her son (“Here comes the sunshine/ Here comes that son of mine/ The most truly fantastic smile I’ve ever seen”) which suddenly sweeps into a baroque masquerade ball.
There’s wit to match the playful rhythms. ‘Mrs Bartolozzi’ is a brilliant inverted mock epic with thundering theatricality about a washing machine spiralling out to the sea before returning to a chorus that runs ‘Swishy Swashy’.
A Sky Of Honey, though rather daunting and potentially new age on paper, is equally delightful. Decadently and pleasingly fashioned from birdsong, giggling and electronica, there’s a nice circularity in Sky’s bassy echoes of Dark Side Of The Moon, bringing Kate right back to Dave Gilmour where it all began. It’s apt. It’s a neat reminder that this most girlish talent – a woman who sings of posies and kisses and crushes on Heathcliff – has always, beneath the whimsy, been skilled enough in musical architecture to fit snugly into record collections built around Kraftwerk and Can. If there’s more where Aerial came from, then I’ll wait and I’ll like it.