When you make the connection, though, a whole new light opens up on the Kate Bush world, with ‘Hounds Of Love', her fifth studio album, the jewel in the electronic crown. People will talk for hours about Bush’s genius songwriting and conceptual art but they will probably mention the iconic ‘Wuthering Heights’ dance before they get to her use of the Fairlight CMI sampler, an impressively chunky and reassuringly expensive piece of electronic kit, first released in 1979, that Kate Bush made her own. All the same, she doesn’t get the respect she deserves as an innovator in electronic music, one who helped to explore early sampling technology and the use of drum machines and synths. As a vast star in her native Britain and a hugely respected artist worldwide, Bush isn’t exactly lacking in acclaim. Kate Bush belongs very much in the latter category.
Musical history shows that for every Maryanne Amacher, there is a Jean-Michel Jarre for every unknown electronic trailblazer, there is a break-out star who hid their innovation in plain view. Understandable as this is - who, frankly, doesn’t love an undiscovered genius? - the truth is a little more complicated.
There is a tendency to view electronic music pioneers as outliers working on the edges of the musical landscape, undiscovered geniuses blazing a trail that will only be appreciated long after they shuffle off this mortal coil.
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