The Hounds of Love Album: A Complete Fan's Guide

Released in September 1985, Hounds of Love is the record that most Kate Bush fans would choose if they could only keep one. It is not merely an album of great songs. It is a two-sided artistic statement that shows Kate Bush at the full height of her powers: confident, experimental, emotionally open, and in absolute command of her craft.

The album was self-produced by Bush in her home studio, a decision that gave her a level of creative control she had not previously had. The difference is audible. Every sound feels precisely chosen, every arrangement serves the song exactly as she intended. There is nothing on Hounds of Love that feels accidental or compromised.

Side one, also titled Hounds of Love, contains five tracks. Running Up That Hill, the lead single, opens with its clicking Fairlight rhythm and builds to one of the most emotionally resonant choruses she has written. Hounds of Love follows: a song about the terrifying vulnerability of falling in love, with its extraordinary lyric about being afraid to feel. The Big Sky is expansive and joyful, practically a palate cleanser after the emotional intensity of the opening two tracks. Mother Stands for Comfort is darker, more inward. And then there is Cloudbusting.

Cloudbusting is one of the most cinematically satisfying songs in Kate Bush's catalogue. It is based on A Book of Dreams, a memoir by Peter Reich about his childhood with his father, the scientist and psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. The song takes Peter's perspective as a child, looking up at the machine his father has built to seed clouds and make it rain. The music video, featuring Donald Sutherland as Wilhelm Reich, is widely regarded as one of the finest music videos ever made.

Side two is an entirely different proposition. The Ninth Wave is a song cycle: a sequence of seven connected pieces that tell the story of a woman who has fallen into the sea at night and drifts alone in the water, somewhere between waking and sleep, between life and death. It is one of the most ambitious works in British pop music.

The seven tracks that make up The Ninth Wave move through remarkably different moods and musical styles. And Dream of Sheep is hushed and folk-inflected, the woman singing softly to herself to stay awake. Under Ice is a nightmare sequence, cold and claustrophobic. Waking the Witch is terrifying, a trial scene conducted over churning, insistent music. The Morning Fog is the resolution: the woman pulled back into life, overwhelming gratitude for the physical world, the sun, her family.

To listen to The Ninth Wave from start to finish, in a quiet room, preferably in the dark, is one of the distinctive experiences that Kate Bush's music offers. It takes you somewhere. It earns its ending.

Hounds of Love topped the UK albums chart and was a major international success. It received strong critical acclaim at the time, though it is perhaps even more admired now than it was in 1985. Rolling Stone magazine includes it in their list of the greatest albums ever made. Various critics have awarded it perfect scores in retrospective reviews. Time has been extraordinarily kind to this record.

For new listeners approaching Kate Bush, Hounds of Love is almost universally recommended as the entry point. The first side is accessible without being superficial, while the second side invites the kind of patient, attentive listening that reveals something new on every encounter. You can spend years with this album and still find it rewarding.

Music from Hounds of Love sits at the heart of the Almost Kate Bush programme. Heard in an intimate theatre, with voice, piano and strings, the songs reveal a structural elegance that the studio production sometimes keeps partially hidden. They are beautiful in a different way when the arrangement steps back and lets the songwriting speak.

Almost Kate Bush performs music from Hounds of Love and the full Kate Bush catalogue in theatres across the UK. Visit www.almostkatebush.com for dates and booking.