Beloved art-pop recluse Kate Bush isn’t the sort to make public appearances nowadays, however she does share occasional messages to the world on her web site. When she was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame final yr, Kate Bush didn’t attend, however she did share a statement. She shared another statement when she was named File Retailer Day’s UK Ambassador earlier this yr. In October, Bush gave an exceedingly uncommon BBC interview, and he or she stated that she’s “got lots of ideas” for brand spanking new music. Now, she’s shared a Christmas message, an annual ritual for her.
If Kate Bush does make one other document, it’ll be her first since 2011’s 50 Words For Snow, which is mainly an idea album about falling in love with a snowman. It’s Christmas music, form of! Across the time that she did that BBC interview, Bush shared “Little Shrew (Snowflake),” an animated video for her 50 Phrases For Snow track “Snowflake,” to boost cash for the War Child charity.
In her Christmas Eve message, Bush talks a bit concerning the reception for her “Little Shrew” video. She additionally mentions the “exceptionally darkish information” all over the world, the wars that preserve raging and the kids caught up in them, with out mentioning the precise nations concerned in these wars. And she or he writes about going to see a Monet exhibit and displays on the way forward for artwork within the face of AI. Right here’s her message:
It’s been actually thrilling to see the splendidly constructive suggestions to the Little Shrew animation. Thanks a lot to all of you who made a donation to Battle Youngster. They’ve been completely delighted with the response.
Little Shrew shall be getting a bowl of particularly scrumptious earthworms this Christmas morning.
It’s been one other yr of exceptionally darkish information. It simply retains getting worse, doesn’t it?
The wars preserve raging. We helplessly stand and watch as these poor persons are caught up within the horrors of all of it and naturally there are the kids…
It’s onerous to not give attention to the concern all of us really feel about these conflicts and the huge modifications which might be taking place round us, however I’d wish to attempt to discover one thing constructive to say for this Christmas message:
Glad Christmas Eve! My favorite day of the yr. After I was a toddler, it used to have a particular feeling. It even had a kind of Christmas Eve odor… a mix of smoking coal fires and damp leaves, all bundled up in a drizzly English frozen fog. If I actually work on it, I can nonetheless summon it up on the day. I’m engaged on it now…
I went to see the Monet exhibition. Twenty one work in two rooms — all that includes the Thames within the smog. They have been extremely atmospheric. The truth that they have been the entire identical atmosphere made you’re feeling such as you have been there your self, wrapped up in a mysterious smog of muddy sulphurous yellows, sun-starved pinks, car-sick greens.
You could possibly solely make out obscure, blurred shapes via the etherial, swirling veils…an imposing bridge right here, a wispy boat there… these work have been fully mesmerising. They transported you to London on the flip of the final century.
Monet thought that the smog was stunning and that London would’ve appeared totally uninteresting with out it. For him it was the smog that created the magic of the place.
I imagined him prepared at first mild, stood at his easel spluttering and coughing as he peered via the polluted air, with no selection however to gasp at its magnificence.
It made me smile to learn that though he sketched them whereas he was in London, he took them residence and completed them off in France. Ha ha! So all just isn’t because it appears — that sun-starved pink was really lavish Giverny pink.
Is that us? Standing in awe on the daybreak of AI, the image of modernity, as smog was for Monet at the moment within the newly industrial London? Can we solely see the twinkling mild of the brand new invention, which so typically catches the attention of our creativeness… and what are these obscure, darkish sardonic shapes we are able to see within the background, behind the theatrical gauze?
It’s onerous to make them out, however might they be our human pods, like these from the Matrix, being readied for us by keen, playful digits? Or possibly they’re freshly painted bridges – sturdy, and lovingly constructed to hold us all right into a a lot longed-for new age of wholesome considering?
All shall be revealed when the smog begins to clear.
Merry Christmas everybody. I hope it’s a extremely joyful one for you all.
Glad new yr.
Kate
