Aerial (album)

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Aerial
Studio album by Kate Bush
Released	November 2005
Recorded	1999 - 2005
Genre	Alternative Rock, Art Rock, Pop Rock
Length	79:58
Label	EMI
Producer(s)	Kate Bush
Professional reviews
Rolling Stone link All Music Guide link PopMatters (7/10) link Billboard (Favorable) link Q magazine link Halo-17 (8.3/10) link The Independent link New York Daily News (Favorable) link The Observer link Metacritic (80/100) link BBC (Very favourable) link
Kate Bush chronology
The Red Shoes (1993)	Aerial (2005)

Kate Bush's eighth studio album, Aerial, is a two-disc set released on November 7, 2005. It is her first new album since 1993. Musicians contributing to the album include former Procol Harum keyboardist Gary Brooker, drummer Steve Sanger, long-time Kate Bush collaborator Michael Kamen, Brazilian percussionist Bosco D'Oliveira, and Rolf Harris.

On November 13, Aerial entered the official UK Album chart at number three. It sold more than 90,000 copies in its first seven days, enough to have taken it to number one most other weeks of the year. Within a month, it had been certified platinum. Within five months of its release, the album had sold more than 1.1 million copies worldwide.

Aerial is among Bush's most critically acclaimed albums.[1] On January 10, 2006, Bush was nominated for two BRIT Awards for Best British Female Solo Artist and Best British Album for Aerial. On January 27, it went up against Demon Days by Gorillaz and Coles Corner by Richard Hawley in the pop category of the South Bank Show's annual arts awards, but was beaten by Hawley.

UK music magazine Mojo named it their third best album of 2005, behind Antony and the Johnsons' I Am a Bird Now and Funeral by Arcade Fire.

Contents 1 Singles 2 Track listing 2.1 Disc one: A Sea of Honey 2.2 Disc two: A Sky of Honey 3 Personnel 4 Miscellanea 5 External links

[edit] Singles

The first single from the album was "King of the Mountain". The song makes references to Elvis Presley and the film Citizen Kane. The track was played for the first time on BBC Radio 2 on September 21, 2005, and was made available for download as of September 27. The single peaked at number four on the UK singles chart, giving Bush her first top five hit for twenty years and her third highest ever chart placing. The song also made number six on the UK Downloads chart.

[edit] Track listing

All songs written by Kate Bush.

[edit] Disc one: A Sea of Honey

1. "King of the Mountain" – 4:53
2. "π" – 6:09
3. "Bertie" – 4:18
4. "Mrs. Bartolozzi" – 5:58
5. "How to Be Invisible" – 5:32
6. "Joanni" – 4:56
7. "A Coral Room" – 6:12

[edit] Disc two: A Sky of Honey

1. "Prelude" – 1:26
2. "Prologue" – 5:42
3. "An Architect's Dream" – 4:50
4. "The Painter's Link" – 1:35
5. "Sunset" – 5:58
6. "Aerial Tal" – 1:01
7. "Somewhere in Between" – 5:00
8. "Nocturn" – 8:34
9. "Aerial" – 7:52

[edit] Personnel

• Kate Bush: Vocals, Piano and Keyboards
• Peter Erskine, Stuart Elliot, Steve Sanger: Drums
• Eberhard Weber, John Giblin, Del Palmer: Bass
• Bosco D'Oliveira: Percussion
• Dan McIntosh: Electric and Acoustic Guitar
• Gary Brooker: Hammond Organ
• Rolf Harris: Didgeridoo, The Painter
• Lol Creme, Gary Brooker, Paddy Bush: Backing Vocals
• Michael Wood: Male Vocal on "A Coral Room"
• Chris Hall: Accordion
• Richard Cambell, Susan Pell: Viols
• Eligio Quinteira: Renaissance Guitar
• Robin Jeffrey: Renaissance Percussion
• Bertie: The Sun
• Del Palmer: Recording and Mixing Engineer
• James Guthrie: Mastering
• Bill Dunne: "Bertie" String Arrangement
• Michael Kamen, London Metropolitan Orchestra: Orchestral Arrangements; Conducted by Michael Kamen at Abbey Road Studios
• Simon Rhodes: Engineer
• Chris Bolster: Assistant Engineer
• Josephine Bartolinni: Italian Translation

[edit] Miscellanea

• In the song "π," Kate Bush sings the digits of Pi to over one hundred decimal places. However, fans have discovered that she actually omits twenty-two of the decimal places.[2]
• First single "King of the Mountain" was the first track to be written on the album, back in 1996, nine years before it was eventually released.
• The painting credited to "James Southall" in the centre spread of the album booklet is actually a cropped and mirror-reversed (flopped image) of "Fishermen and Boat" by Joseph Edward Southall (1861-1944), painted in 1923 (see [3]). In addition to the mirror-reversal, the name AERIAL has been added to the side of the boat.
• The front cover while looking like a set of islands is in fact the soundwave of a Blackbird song.
• The second disk, A Sky of Honey can be seen, conceptually, as a musical representation of the cycles of a day:
  • "Prelude" - morning
  • "Prologue" - afternoon
  • "An Architects Dream/The Painter's Link" – later afternoon
  • "Sunset" – sunset
  • "Aerial Tal" - Evening
  • "Somewhere in Between" – night
  • "Nocturn" – midnight
  • "Aerial" – early hours of the morning

[edit] External links

• 'I'm not some weirdo recluse' (The Guardian 28 October 2005)
• This Bush's mission finally gets accomplished (National Post 22 December 2005)

v • d • e Kate Bush discography
Studio releases: The Kick Inside | Lionheart | Never for Ever | The Dreaming | Hounds of Love | The Sensual World | The Red Shoes | Aerial Compilations: The Single File | The Whole Story | This Woman's Work | Live @ Hammersmith