Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.
From my middle to high school years, I was fortunate to catch the end reaches of WDRE’s radio waves soaring across Long Island Sound. WDRE was my gateway to great music beyond the obvious artists. Where I grew up, it was easy to play Billy Joel, Zeppelin, the Dead, GnR and U2 to death. But no one was pointing me to Kate Bush. No one except my British cousin and WDRE. There was a four-year studio absence between Hounds of Love and The Sensual World, but when “Love and Anger” hit the airwaves, it was like Kate Bush made up for all that lost time overnight.
Bush has stuck with many of the same recording musicians over the years. Such was the case with “Love and Anger” where Bush enlisted David Gilmour to play guitar. Gilmour noticed her talent early on before she signed with a record company. He ended up paying for a few of her demos. And he has also let his producer mind and guitar playing abilities on various Kate Bush recordings over the years. In “Love and Anger”, we hear Gilmour’s distinct soaring riffs combined with the maturation of Kate Bush’s voice from less whimsical to more wise.
“Looking for a moment that'll never happen. Living in the gap between past and future.”