Hounds of Love 25th anniversary!

This fantastic work of music by Kate Bush was officially released 25 years ago today. Hounds of Love is my favorite of her discography and it shows how her music continually matures and grows with each record. All of her works are unique and worthy of praise. With my first listening, HoL struck a chord (pun intended??) with me especially "Hello Earth" and "The Big Sky". Kate is a film fan and sometimes she refers to movies and adds bits of film dialogue in her songs. Two examples from HoL are"Hello Earth" and "Running up that hill". "Hello Earth" uses the same haunting men's choir piece that was in Werner Herzog's 1979 film "Nosferatu". All seven songs on side two make up the The Ninth Wave a sort of storytelling theme. Some of the hits to be released from HolL are "Running up that hill" and "The Big Sky". It is wonderful to listen to this album (like all her others) closely to catch the richness and melodic tapestry of music and overlapping chorus of voices woven into the songs. Kate Bush puts layer upon layer in her songs and you want to just pull them out one by one and dig deeper and deeper to hear how it is done. HoL is carefully thought out and is unhurried in its creation. You can tell. There are synthesizers winding around spurts of harmonic rhythms of voice and at one time you hear a plane roaring overhead. We hear beat box drums meshed with English/Irish traditional instruments and rhythms.
Twenty-five years down the road Kate Bush's Hounds of Love still mesmerizes me and is as fresh and amazing as the first day I heard it on its release day. Give it a listen. You will not be disappointed.


-image courtesy of Gaffaweb a tribute site to Kate Bush.