Stan Deely on A Sea of Honey
AERIAL – A SEA OF HONEY
I am slightly familiar with this album having burned a library copy about a decade ago and giving it the occasional listen trying to get into it, which felt a bit of a duty. My first impression was mixed on one hand I thought it was good, on the other a bit safe and samey.
As is my wont I tried not find out too much about the album before listening but the darned Mojo magazine dropped through my door, reviewing significant moments of the last 30 years including a feature on the album. From this I learned that she’d returned to writing at the piano again, and wanted to make an ‘expansive double’ album in the style of Hounds of Love – standalone songs on the first disc and a conceptual suite on the second.
I knew the first disc better than the second hence the decision to review them separately so firstly – A SEA OF HONEY
THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN
Continues the Kate tradition of starting with the lead off single and it’s a belter. On its release I thought “This is the best thing she has done since Running Up the Hill” which I used to think was the only thing I really liked by her but I softened around 2009 when I picked up cassettes of the Sensual World and the Red Shoes albums from charity shops. I can’t say that either impressed me much on my first listens back then.
A mid paced groove and the Peter Gabriel/Hugh Padgham big drum sound. It rocks. Kate is in fine voice. A strong comeback single.
PI
My notes said tastefully produced adult oriented rock. The slightly queasy cheesy synth sound reminds me of the sound on Donald Fagens solo album Kamakariad (or at least my memory of it!) Also reminds me of the ersatz elevator music of the Young Marble Giants on their Testcard ep. The musician’s are credited on individual tracks, just for the album overall but it sounds like Eberhard Weber on the bass.
An exercise with Kate seeing if she can emote and bring passion to the singing numbers – which she does very . Shame she didn’t take on the oft used cliché of “‘Could sing the Telephone directory and make it sound good.”
BERTIE
Classic old school piano and voice Kate. A paean to whats shes been doing this past decade – being a mum and bringing up her son. I read somewhere but I’m not 100% sure about this, that both Kate and Sade brought up their kids hands on without the help of nannies, tutors etc and possibly in Sade’s case even cleaners. Can anyone corrobate or deny this info.
Anyway I’ve got nothing particular against this song and it turns out quite nice in a kinda folky almost Irish jig style when the strings break in. I’m surprised she didn’t include a Christmas humble brag round robin about his latest achievements. According to the song he brings her a lot of joy which makes me wonder why she stopped at the one kid.
MRS BARTOLOZZI
This is more up my street. Just Kate and piano again but sounding a bit anxious and angsty. .Appears to be another mothering song – a paean to domestic contentment – not too rock’n’roll but fair play to her for writing this and adding to the the list of songs about domesticity- John Lennon’s Watching the Wheels and not much else.
At first I was irritated the ‘washing machine’ refrain but it grew on me. Great vocals as well.
HOW TO BE INVISIBLE
Could be a Radiohead song both in title and execution. Probably my favourite on this album. Stripped back. Kate in fine voice but his is what we expect nowadays. Circular rhythms. Bit motorik even.
JOANNI
Another groover. Sounds to me like Hot Chip doing a Talking Heads cover. The chorus has the album’s most catchy earworm. I find myself cycling around town singing it at the top of my voice. I would like to think it was influenced by Joe Strummer’s cry of “Johnny Johnny” at the end of Protex Blue but realise that this is probably not the case.
THE CORAL ROOM
Another piano ballad in a minor key a la Womans Work etc. A personal song about the passing of time and missing her mother. She’s pretty good at these. I wonder how it would sound if she did a solo piano album.
However I’m afraid that this particular song leaves me a bit cold. I can’t quite feel the gravitas she is aiming for. I like the slightly abstract imagery but for me works better as background listening than when I concentrate on the song and the words.. It just doesn’t move me like for instance Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young can with their piano ballads. Maybe its her voice which is a bit too mannered to sell it to me? Sorry to end the review on a downer. I would be open to hearing other opinions on what I am missing.
SUMMATION
7 songs in 39 minutes is more digestible than the last album which had 11 songs lasting nearly an hour.
Takes some of the tropes, directions of the last album, the Red Shoes and moves them forward. More compact and singular than the Red Shoes, less trad Irish, no tropical excursions and nothing as out there as Big Stripey Lie.
Still a bit experimental, hence Pi and Mrs Barolozzi. Has an aura of command –“ I’m Kate Bush and I can do anything’. Not quite matching Hounds of Love but possibly second in the pantheon and this is before I get to A Sky of Honey.
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Think you missed “Pi”. At the time it was my favourite of the 2 discs. I thought Bertie was overly sentimental but soon after I became a father and understood much better. I think Mrs Bartolozzi is about death, her partner is gone and the previous mundane task of washing his clothes becomes moving and profound.
I lost my mother the same year and found A Coral Room very affecting. In fact a tough listen then and a tough listen even now almost 20 years later.
King of the Mountain was a big hit
Pi is up there, Dai.
Ooh yeah, guess I was looking for the Greek symbol π
No, I think you were right. When I first looked at the thread on my phone, there was no separation from KotM. Maybe it was a phone thing.
That’s my take on Mrs Bartolozzi too. There’s a real air of sadness about it.
I was a bit hasty posting this and after doing so realised that I hadn’t paid attention to the lyrics of most of the songs so am giving the album a couple more listens whilst following the lyrics. I’m not expecting this to change my view greatly but I’ll let you know if it does
I love Mrs Bertolozzi and A Coral Room. Kate alone at the piano is a wonderful thing. Sublime examples of that at the start of the next disc.
As a complete album, I love Aerial and think that it’s up there with the absolute best of Kate Bush. It was a long time coming (12 years ?) but it was worth the wait.
That said, I think that the ‘Sky Of Honey’ side is so good that it somewhat reduces the impact and enjoyment of “Sea Of Honey” . I must admit though that I have always listened to it as a complete album and not really listened to each “side” in isolation. I shall remedy this over the next few days and report back……
They aren’t 2 sides of the same album they are actually different discs, both on LP and CD
I didn’t really consider KOTM as one of her great songs until I saw and heard the live version, which was transformative in every sense. The other outstanding song for me on this album is HTBI, which is hypnotic and such a groove. I get the sentiments behind Mrs B and A Coral Room, but they don’t move me as Kate Bush ballads normally do.
Of the whole Aerial album, I tend to listen almost exclusively to A Sky Of Honey, so am looking forward to Stan’s take on it.
Yeah KOTM was incredible live
I like King Of The Mountain – but it annoys me that she slurs most of the words – and a couple of the others are OK, but I find this album incredibly dull. Even the “good” songs are – to my taste – quite dull.
At least I ripped all of the tracks off A Sea Of Honey, I see that I left out a few tracks off A Sky Of Honey. I used to remove all tracks that I rated only one or two stars…later I decided to rip and keep them all (well, apart from interludes, skits, and those 12 second intros and outros that some artists enjoy adding, AND some songs that I just hate violently…but I haven’t gone back to CDs I ripped before I changed my rules to add back the removed tracks, because that would be madness), if only to be able to tell people which tracks, by otherwise admired artists, that I hate!
Like many Kate albums, this has massive (positive) associations with a particular moment in life. When it came out, it was A Sea of Honey that hooked me first. It interests me that there’s quite a range of which tracks work for each of us; there doesn’t seem to be one stonker which everyone recognises, nor one stinker. For me, Bertie and Mrs Bartolozzi were the fulcrum of the whole 2CD album, set next to each other, yet at emotional opposites. I remember feeling so rewarded after the long wait (and the ho-hum of The Red Shoes). It made me smile that only Kate could get away with certain things with such aplomb and success. The telephone directory comparison with Pi is a good one; we joke about the idea, but here’s Kate actually proving it can be done. It’s tough to write about the unbridled joy of parenthood without descending into schmaltz, harder still to lay such fundamental emotions bare; and I still smile at how she gets away with ‘slooshy-sloshy’ as a lyric.
But Joannie and How to be Invisible pretty much pass me by without notice. I don’t skip them – it’s rare that I do that anyway – but that’s hardly praise.
Mathematics in rock…h’mmm
Well, how about Euler’s Identity?
I rather enjoyed the B-side of King Of The Mountain, this little-covered ditty, although it went on a bit.