“Hounds of Love” is a song from the eponymous album by Kate Bush, released in 1986. The album was the one of Kate’s consecration album, a “concept album” which showed to the world that Bush was not only the most popular female singer of the UK pop scene, but a crazy lady capable of pushing the boundaries beyond reasonableness. When released, it was accompanied with a video clip that Bush realized herself, a video that smells the 80’s but has also a weird flavor of its own which transpires through the ages:
Randy Bryan is a singer songwriter from Richmond, Virginia, who was diagnosed with late-in-life autism spectrum disorder. But who cares about his diagnosis, as what we want is good music, by good musicians? Of course, he might care about it as he says that it came down right before he started this track, and that he now navigates this new territory of that issue. But as far as we are concerned, let’s have a look at his project, which took 8 months before it be released: re-create “Hounds of Love” into a modern version, cinematic and passing it from the Fairlight CMI (The first popular synthesizer/sampler that had its glory in the early 80s, and was used profusely by Kate Bush) to more modern sounds and arrangement.
The project, the song is a real success. It adds a long dramatic intro, that owes a lot to his co-producer e-flamingo, dealing with bass, beat and drum mixing. And then the song comes, with strong and rich electronic orchestral arrangement. Randy’s voice is great, rich and profound, and brings its own universe to a song that in its original version was made around Kate’s Anglo-Irish soprano voice.
It’s a beautiful track, pretty well produced, which in no way degrades the beauty of the original song, but gives it a second-life. I was a fan of “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush. So it’s impossible for me to say that this new version is better. But honestly, to my 2022 ears, passed through decades of new sounds and mixing progresses, it is… richer. I hope I won’t attract the wrath of Kate’s fans by saying that, as in no way I believe there is anything to change/add to “Hounds of Love” original song, but I wanted to pay tribute to the Randy’s project, which I believe deserve full attention and recognition.
Make you own mind:
