OTR: Kate Bush - The Sensual World

The Sensual World was Kate Bush's sixth studio album, the proper follow-up which came four years after the release of Hounds of Love (and three years after the release of the compilation The Whole Story). For me there is a symbolic split in the Kate Bush discography at this album. While it is true that The Whole Story effectively splits her career into two distinct eras, for me, the split was about formats: with The Sensual World in WAIH's archives, Kate Bush's albums ceased to be on vinyl and were on CD from that point forward.

Of course, personally, I own all of her stuff on CD, but how I loved playing those vinyl records.

I have to admit with some embarrassment that I haven't explored this album as deeply as either The Dreaming or Hounds of Love, which may have been one reason - directly relating to the LP - that I held off on writing about it for so long. Still, such long gaps between "Off the Rack" entries is not exactly acceptable. I'm never going to get through my entire music collection at this rate!

At least I've actually been busy with other productive things in the interim. I'm going to be doing a "mini tour" for Illusion of Joy in the Fall, playing shows outside of Pittsburgh. It'll be a fun vacation from my normal routine (one which, honestly, I'd love to be doing more often). Of course, the preparation has been pulling my head in multiple directions. I have set lists to make up, a new PA system to familiarise myself with, the logistics of when and where I'm going to sleep as I go from city to city and any other million things that I'll randomly forget and remember at any given moment.

So, now is a good time for Kate Bush's more soothing side. As implied by the title, The Sensual World is Bush at her smoothest and most seductive. She is not braying like a donkey ("Get Out of My House") or shrieking ("Waking the Witch") on this set.

Not to say that she isn't still wonderfully weird with her odd time signatures and non-traditional song structures. In fact, as this album came out in 1989, I wonder if Bush doesn't have a bit of precognition as I listen to "Deeper Understanding." The song tells of an individual who shuns direct human interaction for that of a computer. Social networking did not become as ubiquitous as it is now until half a decade ago (although it did exist as early as 1995 in the form of sites like Firefly).

The internet did exist in 1989, however, as recently as 2005, when promoting Aerial, Bush's label stated that she did not check her MySpace page because she personally did not use the internet. So, this makes me doubt that she was an early adopter in the days when a 28k modem would have been seen as cutting-edge and Prodigy was one of the very few commercial services which allowed people to get online.

So, what exactly inspired this song? Hell if I know...sometimes when something flies out into the collective consciousness it just ends up landing somewhere. Still, "Deeper Understanding" makes for an apt comment on today's society where a "tweet" is somehow more valued than going to a coffee shop with a small group.