The Red Shoes

KATE BUSH: "The Red Shoes" (EMI)

IT'S OFFICIAL! Kate Bush albums now arrive only as often as the World Cup or the Olympic Games. It's been four years since the release of The Sensual World which in turn came four years after Hounds of Love. However, unlike either the Olympics or that soccer thingy, the advent of The Red Shoes is genuinely something to get excited about. I've already started counting the days to 1997.

The Red Shoes is an extraordinary piece of work, simultaneously accessible and deeply complex, poppy and highly experimental. Kate is still as nutty as a truckload of Snickers bars and during the first few listens there is much to have you scratching your head and essaying double-takes but slowly, gradually a cohesive silhouette starts to emerge and make something that is, if not quite sense, then very, very sensual.

Just to give you an inkling of the breadth of this undertaking, I'll list some of the bit players: Prince, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Lenny Henry, Nigel Kennedy, The Trio Bulgarka. None of these people add anything more than the occasional daub of colour but the assembly of such a quirky, confusing and mischevious supporting cast is very much in keeping with the mood and direction of the main feature. The Red Shoes is a jigsaw with several very large bits missing.

What we do know is that Kate Bush has been through some rough weather lately. During the recording of this album, her mother, Hannah, died and she also split up with her long-time lover and collaborator, Del Palmer. Both events cast their shadow on several tracks. There's a pervasive tone of melancholy, regret, a longing for times past - "Life is sad and so is love" goes one chorus, and rarely has Kate ever sounded so worldly-wise yet so, well, surprised.

However, it would be too simplistic and quite wrong to see all of The Red Shoes as a sort of In Memoriam card to a dead parent and an expired relationship. There's too much other stuff going on for any resting in peace. There are great big, bouncy songs about music and eh, fruit ('Eat The Music'), folk fairytales (the title cut), tracks I can only describe as hymns ('Song of Solomon', 'Lily'), not to mention plenty of references to sex and the meaning of life.

My own favourite is a song that made me cringe when I initially heard it. 'Moments of Pleasure' is so intimately personal, it's almost a diary entry. Kate simply sings an incongruous litany of minute recollections, moments of pleasure, naming names as she goes ("Hey there Teddy, spinning in the chair at Abbey Road").

Daft as it sounds, this flick through the Bush scrapbook is ultimately spellbinding and will even trigger off a similar search through your own memory banks. Take it from me.

Nobody but Kate Bush could have made an album like this. Nobody else would've tried. It is beautiful, heartrending and brave. These shoes were made for walking.

• Liam Fay