King of the Mountain

by

Kate Bush

Edit

If you love Kate, you will probably want get this single no matter what, and keep drooling all over it thinking about the upcoming album, but here's a quick scoop on why this is such a tasty release.

The sleeve design for starters: no glossy photos, just that beautiful drawing done by Kate's son, and the whole thing is printed on real cardboard paper, very shabby chic and very cool. Once you take the inner sleeve out, you get to see a beautiful photo of Kate, and the lyrics to King of the Hill are printed on the back of it.

The King of the Mountain is a great big song, trancey and building up to a kicking climax. It reminds me of Cloudbusting, but this is definitely new, different Kate. Her vocals start strange, with a very cotton-mouth, novocaine feel at first, but that makes perfect sense if you think about the lyrics and the Citizen Kane/Elvis story told in the song. Then she lets loose and her voice soars through these beautiful lines. I don't think Kate ever gets the full credit for how good she is as a singer, but as someone who runs in the classical music circles and spends a lot of time dissecting vocal technique, all I can say Kate's voice is top notch, perfectly controlled but so expressive at the same time.

The funky and trippy guitars and cool swooshy sound effects add flavor to the King of the Mountain. Fabulous song!

The B-side song on this single has Kate doing "Sexual Healing" and what a crazy version that is. Fast and springly, with a little touch of the swinging Roxy Music funk, and Kate sounding unbelievably girly. And it also has uilleann pipes jazzing in the background. If you never heard a Celtic flavoured take on that Marvin Gaye classic, here's your chance. It's as if Molly Bloom got plucked out of Sensual World and transported to a New York bar. Great stuff...

This single is a royal gift from Kate and a worthy herald for Aerial.