There’s something quite apt about Bush’s voice summoning the hands of pilled-up hedonists at warehouse parties and a kind of payback too. Even now I still love this album, something I rediscovered while reading this book and playing songs as they came up. Doyle also examines the songs, pointing out what worked, what might not have, and why certain songs were so far ahead of what was being released. Ever since a teenage Kate Bush arrived chanting Heathcliff’s in 78, stretching the key of C sharp like an oscillating wave, there’s been a sense of the otherworldly about her.

Comprehensively charting her career, from The Kick Inside (1978) to Director’s Cut (2011), Doyle captures a more multidimensional view of the artist, allowing glimpses into her personal life, including the earth-shattering loss of her mother in 1992 and her friendship with David Bowie. Bush’s singularity makes fans feel like members of the biggest secret society in music, though it’s one they now share with the Gen Z-ers who discovered her last spring, when the 1985 single Running Up That Hill was featured on the Netflix series Stranger Things.Split into 50 brief chapters, Doyle’s portrait stitches together a comprehensive, revealing commentary on the notoriously media-shy artist and her complicated relationship to her craft, public persona, and audience ("If you make music and you don’t let people hear it, you could almost say it doesn’t exist," she once said).

With Kate back in the news following the inclusion of ‘Running Up That Hill’ in the TV show Stranger Things, this lavish book is published at the perfect time to celebrate Kate’s contributions to the world of music. The best sections refer to a lengthy interview the author did with Kate in 2005 to publicise her latest album, ‘Aerial.Even that is not straightforward, since in the latter half of Bush’s career, she’s said very little. There’s a great section revisiting her Aerial album, which although nine years in the making was a real labour of love for Bush. I just find it frustrating that people think I’m some sort of weirdo recluse that never comes out into the world,” she says. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Comprising fifty chapters or 'visions', The Big Sky is a multi-faceted biography of this famously elusive figure, viewing her life and work from fresh and illuminating angles.

Her long processes for getting things just right, discomfort around her beauty and her sheer determination to always do her best. I'm sad - I expected a more personal look at Kate Bush, but perhaps that was unrealistic given how private a person she is known to be. Visions saves that one till last and thankfully the book gets back on track where Doyle is at his best, writing about the creation and influence of Bush’s music. The less you know about Kate’s work, the more you’ll enjoy this book, but even familiar stories or well-worn anecdotes come to life because Doyle clearly covered so much ground during that 2005 interview.Her father played classical compositions on the piano, and she listened to drinking songs and sea shanties as well as King Crimson and Pink Floyd. I persevered through the text despite having little knowledge of the subject matter - I had to go online to listen to more of Ms Bush’s music to understand what Mr Doyle was writing about. Each vision focuses on a song, album, a point in Kate’s career, an interview transcript or recollections. She tells him ‘maybe’, but then responds predictably by saying that the quality might have dropped if she’d made more. Featuring details from the author’s one-to-one conversations with Kate, as well as vignettes of her key songs, albums, videos and concerts, this artful, candid and often brutally funny portrait introduces the reader to the refreshingly real Kate Bush.