Kate Bush: The Dreaming ("Escapologist" edition) [FISH PEOPLE]

Why you'll love it

The Escapologist edition wraps the 2018 remaster in a Timorous Beasties sleeve with a textured, gold-printed inner and obi, the second in Kate Bush's illustrated vinyl series after the Baskerville Hounds of Love. The album went straight in at No. 3 in the UK and gave her a top-20 single in "Sat in Your Lap."

This edition

• Escapologist edition
• 180g vinyl
• Remastered (2018 audio)
• Timorous Beasties presentation sleeve
• Obi strip
• Picture labels

About the album

Most artists make their fourth album with a producer looking over their shoulder. Kate Bush took the chair herself, produced every second of The Dreaming, and spent the best part of two years building it, laying the final touches at London's Advision studios in the first months of 1982.

The result is her boldest record, full of uilleann pipes, mandolins, didgeridoo, vocal loops, samples and polyrhythmic percussion. Every song tells a different story. "There Goes a Tenner" plays out like an old crime film, "Pull Out the Pin" came from a documentary about the war in Vietnam, "Houdini" follows the great escapologist himself, and "Get Out of My House" borrows its haunted rooms from Stephen King's The Shining. "Suspended in Gaffa" and "Leave It Open" turn inward, and "Sat in Your Lap" bounces along on a thundering drum pattern.

It was also her first album to reach the Billboard 200, carried by college radio and MTV. Björk, Big Boi of Outkast and Steven Wilson have all named it a favourite, and NPR's public poll put it at No. 24 among the greatest albums by women. It also persuaded Bush to build a studio of her own, which is the sort of home improvement most of us never quite get round to.

Also at Kops: more Kate Bush on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Fish People (cat# FP4LPSE), a reissue of the 1982 album.