Lionheart

About

Kate Bush wasted no time returning to the studio to record <i>Lionheart</i>, the follow-up to her 1978 debut album, <i>The Kick Inside</i>. Reuniting with Andrew Powell, who produced her first record, she spent the summer of 1978 at France’s Super Bear Studio. As might be expected with the compressed timeline, <i>Lionheart</i> found Bush dipping into her existing stash of songs and giving them a fresh look. On the surface, that equaled a more adventurous album interested in prioritizing atmosphere and intricate wordplay than pop hooks—as exemplified by winsome piano balladry like “In Search of Peter Pan” and “Oh England My Lionheart,” or the fully orchestrated grandeur of glammy standout “Hammer Horror.” Even the UK Top 20 single “Wow,” a sprawling space-rock song Bush wrote in the style of Pink Floyd, isn’t an obvious chart tune. To make this vision come to life, Bush was joined by several of the session players from her first record, along with other musicians—notably bassist Del Palmer, a member of Bush’s pre-solo career group the KT Bush Band, who would become a go-to studio collaborator. Francis Monkman, founder of the prog band Curved Air, also contributed harpsichord to several song, including the theatrical rock number “Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake.” .

via Apple Music

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