Kate Bush – Director’s Cut

Kate Bush returns from the musical wilderness after a surprisingly short (by her standards) absence of six years with Director’s Cut, her first album since 2005’s flawless Aerial.

For an artist who famously refuses to look back (she’s released just one ‘greatest hits’ compilation in her career, 1986’s misleadingly titled The Whole Story), Director’s Cut is an unexpected undertaking: Bush has rerecorded material from two of her later albums, 1989’s soft-focus The Sensual World and 1993’s underappreciated The Red Shoes.

While both records contain more than their fair share of classic Kate, both have dated more severely than her other works — The Sensual World marred by its oh-so-’80s production, and The Red Shoes littered with celebrity cameos from the likes of Eric Clapton, Prince and, er, Lenny Henry.

So perhaps a refreshed take on these songs, stripped of their decades-old production, was in order after all?

Strangely, for a project that the notoriously exacting Bush has described as a painstaking undertaking, Director’s Cut feels a little half-formed. All 11 songs (four from The Sensual World, seven from The Red Shoes) have been completely revoiced, but many retain elements of their original productions.

When it works, it works. Glorious early ’90s pop moment Rubberband Girl is reincarnated as a bluesy, Stones-esque jam, and two of her most timeless ballads, This Woman’s Work and Moments of Pleasure, are slowed to a glacial pace with stunning results. And she’s finally been allowed to air The Sensual World as it was originally intended, with lyrics lifted directly from James Joyce’s Ulysses (her 1989 request was denied by the Joyce estate, forcing Bush to hastily pen her own words).

When it doesn’t work, as on puzzling first single Deeper Understanding (which drains the warmth of the original and replaces it with — gulp — autotune), you’re left hankering to go back to your old copies of the albums they’re from.

And then there are the songs — too many songs — that aren’t all that different from their original form, aside from Bush’s now deeper and more weathered voice. Listening to And So Is Love and The Red Shoes, their changes imperceptible to all but the most devout Kate trainspotters, one can’t help but wonder: why did she bother?

The deluxe edition of Director’s Cut comes with the two original albums included. However, by all reports (here at SSO we’re yet to get our hands on the full three-disc package), only The Red Shoes is remastered. The Sensual World will apparently be included in its original, now quite tinny, 1989 form.

It’s an opportunity squandered and, along with the preponderance of ‘half reworkings’ on the original album, poses some troubling questions: did Bush run out of time to remaster The Sensual World? Did she simply lose patience and give up midway through the project? For the first time in her 33-year career, there’s an air of ‘Will this do?’ about a Kate Bush album.

Ultimately, perhaps the best thing to be gleaned from Director’s Cut is the welcome news that Bush is midway through recording an album of all-new material. Hopefully a proper follow-up to Aerial won’t be too far away.