Hounds of Love (2018

Product Information

For the objective bit: used Musicscope to analyse, here is a comparison of the 1985 Japan disc of Hounds with the CD box set of Hounds, 2018 remaster. I believe she has an extremely clear impression of the atmosphere she wants to create. How she achieves that involves the experimentation, but she has an incredible, innate sense of what works for a song,” Haydn Bendall, one of the many engineers who worked on the album told Thompson. “[On Hounds Of Love] we were using Fairlight and Linn drums a lot, and they’d come out with these funny little sounds which you might think weren’t very interesting, and she’d say, ‘Isn’t that wonderful, isn’t that great?’ She’d make it great, and in a way that’s the mark of a genius, to make something fabulous out of a simple idea. She’ll just have a little kernel of an idea that would develop into a huge blossom.” As we’ll see, Bush’s dissatisfaction with her past work throws a few curveballs at fans seeking out the best digital mastering of Hounds of Love.

I took a look at the waveforms while writing this TBVO, and you can definitely see a few momentary high peaks are slightly shorter on the 2018 "Running," but it seemed insignificant to me after repeated listening. (The DR scores on the song are only one point apart, FWIW.)Unlike the 1997 remaster, there’s no problem with compression on the new Guthrie/Bush remaster. On some songs, the 1985 CDs have slightly higher R128 numbers, while on others the 2018 remaster’s numbers are higher. Overall the 1985 CDs score either a 12 or a 13 DR, while the 2018 remaster is a 12 DR. In other words, Guthrie and Bush did an excellent job preserving the album’s original dynamic range. Disjunctive, idiosyncratic and so very, very inventive, Kate Bush's 1985 magnum opus, "Hounds of Love", was the intentionally streamlined yet defiant response to complaints regarding her efficiency in the studio and detractors of the lyrical and structural esotericism inherent in her work. Greatly emboldened by the advances of the digital age, the ever-experimental Bush went one further, building a home studio and developing her latest new material to her satisfaction, subsequently dividing the end product into two distinctive sections. Even under contemporaneous scrutiny, both parts, replete with layered electronic instrumentation, sound effects, and expressive yet refined vocal acrobatics, successfully cohere, and, if persevered with, the full measure still holds up and works incredibly well despite its ambitious structure. Another great article Josh and one of my longest favourite pop artists ever in Kate Bush, and her best album. In 1986, I bought Hounds as well as The Dreaming on the same day, "See the light, ram through the gaps in the land" very accurate Australian landscape in the early mornings through trees... anyway. Both CDs are made in Japan but featured only English booklets and covers.

As fans scooped up copies of Hounds of Love (the first Bush album released on vinyl, cassette, and CD simultaneously), the music press lavished the album with praise. I'm not saying this negatively, I'm so incredibly happy she's getting the recognition she deserves but I fear most of it is a fad and way more about stranger things than kate bush. I really hope im wrong. Either way I'm happy cuz that means they'll make more releases of her stuff. And my vast collection is now worth double the price lol. Too bad this coulda happened a year ago so she could have gotten in the hall of fame. It's just a bit cringe that now people think everyone who likes her likes her because of stranger things(now I know what the hipsters feel like liking people before they were popular) but if even 1/10 of these people become actual fans I'm happy. She's getting the recognition she's deserved all these years. Upon close listening, it’s apparent that the 2018 remaster has a greater degree of depth and clarity than the 1985 CDs. 5 The sound stage on the Guthrie/Bush remaster is deeper, and the remaster evinces greater micro detail than the 1985 mastering, despite not being EQ’d to be brighter. Likely, this greater resolution is the result of a better transfer using more recent analog-to-digital conversion technology. While fans have spotted a few minor errors elsewhere in the 2018 remasters, the Hounds of Love remaster done by Bush and Guthrie is spotless. Rhythm took center stage on Hounds of Love. “When I was initially coming up with the songs…I would actually get Del to manifest in the rhythm box the pattern that I wanted,” Bush explained at a 1985 fan club convention. “As a bass player I think he has a very natural understanding of rhythms and working with drums, and he could also get the patterns that I could hear in my head and that I wanted. It’s…through him that we started off with the rhythmic basis that was then built upon.”In her early use of the Fairlight, Bush prefigured production techniques that would become more and more common as the use of computers in music advanced. “She responded instinctively to all the sonic and cultural implications of the Fairlight,” John Walters, who helped Bush program the Fairlight, told biographer Graeme Thompson. “She was naturally ahead of her time and, of course, went on to do much more with it as the instrument developed. She made the most of it for her own idiosyncratic music.” I am a Lady Gaga fan, and our music tastes are very varied compare to some fanbases! I see Kate Bush in Lady Gaga a lot (not the other way round, obviously)...the theatrics, how certain songs are sung! Similar women, except one excels, and I'm not afraid to admit that as a Lady Gaga fan!! Describing the album as “a timeless classic from a truly unique artist”, Hounds of Lovejoins their 1921 Centenary Edition series with a new and exclusive reissue pressed on recycled vinyl and limited to 1500 copies. We note that this is not a coloured vinyl, as with some other editions in this series. Kate’s album is No.4 0f 37 albums in this set of vinyl reissues. Running Up That Hill' is obviously the highlight, and I'm not basing this solely on the fact it's her most well-known single! (I wouldn't say 'Wuthering Heights' is because Running always charts, more radio-friendly, and so on!) It’s heady stuff for a pop song. But in Bush’s hands, it becomes a universal hymn to the mystery of childhood (“You’re like my yo-yo, that glowed in the dark / What made it special, made it dangerous”) and love for a parent. As Thompson explained in his biography: