33 1/3 Author Q&A: A Closer Look at Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love

Welcome to our latest author Q&A, where we chat to the writers behind new and upcoming 33 1/3 books! Today Leah Kardos tells us more about the challenges of writing a Kate Bush entry in the 33 1/3 series that was both accessible for new listeners and also offered something to devoted fans. She also shares some of the interesting research that didn’t make it into the final book.

My book analyses the music, ideas, creative methods and far-reaching influence of Kate Bush’s 1985 masterpiece Hounds Of Love, one of the most visionary albums of the twentieth century.

When I was considering what to pitch for the open call back in 2022, Kate Bush was experiencing a bit of a miraculous year – the resurgence of ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’ was setting records and had put her back at the top of the charts all over the world. I was also acutely aware that there hadn’t yet been a volume in the series about one of her albums. Bush is such a special artist in my world, and I have always felt an empathic connection with her music – its sensitivity, intelligence, generosity and magic. It just made perfect sense to choose her.

It turns out that Hounds Of Love is a gift to write about. There’s so much musical, sonic-cinematic and conceptual detail to consider. And this period of her creative life in the early-to-mid-1980s is fascinating for many reasons – her developing process and aesthetic, her hard-won autonomy, her uniquely expressive handling of the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument). I feel like people often forget about her technical mastery, that she was (and still is) an elite producer of records. It’s wild that she had achieved all of this by the time she was in her mid-twenties.

Obviously, the singles from side A are outstanding. Really, any of those (‘Running Up That Hill’, ‘Cloudbusting’, ‘Hounds of Love’, ‘The Big Sky’) would be an excellent place to start.

That said, to get a feel for the expressive mode Bush was working in, I would also suggest something like ‘Watching You Without Me’ from side B, because the staging of the music and sound tells you everything you need to know about the story, setting and headspace of the song. There’s plenty of drama: peril, isolation, longing, the void. The music is intelligent and restrained while still being romantic and expressive, not only with Bush’s vocal performance, but also with surges of voluptuous strings by Michael Kamen. There’s uncanny beauty, backwards singing, Indian teental rhythms, morse code, elements of the instrumental texture stretched across the extremes of the stereo space. I think it’s a masterclass in cinematic song production.

Working on my last book, Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie (2021), was such an intense experience compared to this one, which was fun and hugely pleasurable. That book covered Bowie’s final three works so it was a treat to spend so much time and have so much space to sit with a single album. Once the book was done, I went through a period of feeling sad because I missed how it felt to work on it!

The tricky part was trying to strike a balance between writing something accessible for the newer, younger fans, who probably weren’t even born in the 20th century, and also making the book a worthwhile experience for the hardcore Love-hounds who already know everything. I also had to prioritise the story that I wanted to tell, which was about how Hounds Of Love marked Bush’s arrival as an artist and music producer of culture-changing influence.

I learned so much, even though I thought I knew the album well going in. Subtle connections and correspondences between sides A and B that I hadn’t noticed before emerged through the study. Thematic, conceptual, musical and sonic echoes that bounce between the worlds of day and night. I found it really instructive to observe how Bush engaged with the press during this period, how she seemed very energised to chat about her studio and the technical aspects of her creative process but was quite reticent to speak about meanings or pin her work down with definitive answers. It showed me an artist inspired by possibilities, who desired to keep those possibilities open. I tried to apply some of that world-building spirit to my writing about the music itself.

Yes, loads! Though, being an academic I wonder if other people would have found that stuff as interesting as I did? The tight 33,000 word count meant I had to jettison a lot of tangential research that I had accumulated along the way – stuff on Bert Lloyd and whaling shanties and witch trials, oceanic metaphors in literature, myth and psychoanalysis, Arthurian Avalon, etc. There were also some extended investigations into the Fairlight CMI and the technical ins and outs of designing sounds and sequencing song compositions with it. Being a music technologist myself, I was completely fascinated with how technology transformed Bush’s creative process. I ended up cutting most of this stuff but for a smattering of references. Hopefully readers will be able to pick up on the breadcrumbs and investigate further, should they so wish.

Tough question. If there weren’t already a number of Björk and Bowie books in the series, I would have said Vulnicura (Björk, 2015) or 1. Outside (Bowie, 1995). I’m surprised that Philip Glass’s Glassworks (1982) hasn’t been covered yet, so I’ll go with that.