Music Review: Naked Kate by Nymphya

The guitarist in my old blues band, Quazimojo, was very clear about the distinction between Scoring, Arranging, and the Song. We’d finish the first (successful) run-through of one of his compositions, bashing away on our electric guitars, synthesizers and drum kit, and we’d say “Don! What a great song!”

And he’d always correct us, waving a professorial finger, that what we’d heard was our Arrangement, that we had Scored, for these particular instruments. One night, after band practice, I asked him what is the Song then, if we hadn’t just spent 3 hours playing it?

Don smiled big, carefully put away his Stratocaster, and took me into his studio apartment next door. Once settled, he carefully pulled out an ancient (but meticulously cared-for) acoustic guitar, and without a word began playing and singing the same title that we had just been romping and crashing through.

It was a revelation. Once you stripped away all of the overdubs and dynamics, the layers and the stacks of cleverness, the harmonies and the harmonics – what you were left with was the blueprint, the floor map, the skeletal foundation of the tune: The chords, meter and melody. The Song.

“I see.” I said with a smile. He nodded and lifted the professorial finger again. “And all of the best Scoring and Arranging in the world don’t mean shit if the song” (he lifted his acoustic to show me where the song lived) “aint worth a damn.”

This precious memory was returned to me after listening to Nymphya’s revelatory new album “Naked Kate”, in which the clever and eclectic solo artist takes 15 of Kate Bush’s best compositions (hits, deep cuts and rarities) and strips them all the way down to their base elements.

In doing so, much is lost – but something precious is gained. Kate’s Scores are usually a luxurious deep-pile carpet of keyboards, electronic percussion and “Bohemian Rhapsody” levels of vocal harmonies, all having a spa day in a warm bath of reverb. Her Arrangements are baroque in their complexity with whisper-to-a-shout singing and towering dynamics that ebb and flow in shifting layers. A Kate Bush track is a cerebral headtrip that results in a lovely hearttrip by the time the final lush chord finally gives up its perfectly resolving ghost.

And that’s grand and all, but is there a Song in there somewhere?

Valentina O, (aka Nymphya) must have spent some serious time knee-deep in the Bush oeuvre, drilling and stripping and discarding and diggingdiggingdigging for the There that we always knew was there. The deep-pile carpet of emotion has been lovingly pulled up here, leaving behind the beautiful hardwood of connection.

Nymphya’s re-arrangement of Bush’s “Breathing” doesn’t remove layers of music as much as it polishes the rough edges off of the original. 22 year old Kate’s ‘Little Symphony’ features washes of synthesizers, backing vocals from Roy Harper, a bridge of disconnected musical fragments adrift inside of a fretless bass, and a ‘rock’ finale with the more screechy end of Kate’s maturing vocal range. It’s an amazing track, simultaneously dreamy and nightmarish.

But is there a song in there, somewhere?

Yes! Nymphya’s re-working relies on a single, intriguing guitar line for the verses and chorus, a few glissando runs and finger taps for the brief non-time section (which also omits the extensive spoken word section) and just one of the many vocal lines for the outro. In trimming the excesses, this arrangement allows the simple, tragic story room to……breathe.

Often the changes to the songs are subtle and one can see the towering respect that Valentina has for her musical goddessmother. The version of ‘Don’t Give Up’ from “Naked Kate” is noticeably slower than the original, and the echoes of the thick syncopated synths are evident in the subtle, finger-picking acoustic guitar lines, one of which comes courtesy of Alex McMurray, who also provides earthy vocals for the Peter Gabriel part.

McMurray is a talented performer from New Orleans, and this bluesy duet of a ballad is the perfect re-imagining for a song that Gabriel first offered to Dolly Parton.

Those of you who got seriously sweaty in the late 80’s dancing to Bush’s ‘Running up That Hill’ will be quite surprised to hear it without the galloping drum machine accompaniment. Nymphya’s deep dive on Kate’s most-well known U.S. hit calms the song down and returns it closer to its original title ‘A Deal with God’ (which was squelched by the BBC). The song imagines what it would be like if a man and a woman were able – with the Lord’s help – to switch places, and the lyrics do not shy away from how awkward and painful these uncovered truths would be. It’s a great song, but the guts of it were drowned out by kitschy synth squiggles, Kate’s oh-so-dramatic alto bombast, and that relentless drum machine.

So, is there a song in there, somewhere?

Yes! Stripped of its embarrassing 80’s-ness ‘Running up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ – the proper title – is still a show-stopper. Scored for two guitars, one strumming and one finger-picking, the simple beauty of its few chords (Cm, Ab, Bb for the most part) comes to the fore, and the breathless vision of the vocal melody finds new space to thrive in. Tellingly, Nymphya’s arrangement begins with a hushed chorus and concludes likewise, giving the arrangement a sinuous, mobius feel, as if this subconscious tension between men and women is not going to be resolved anytime soon.

Where did this crazy idea of an album come from? Well, according to Valentina herself, it sprang out fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus: “I had come across a signed copy of Kate’s book of lyrics ‘How to Be Invisible’, on eBay. I found myself really wanting to acquire it as a talisman for my studio, so that I could use the energy of her signature to inspire, inform and improve my own work. I managed to win the bidding for this book! I placed it in a spot of high honor in my studio and absorbed the energy of her signature into my hands. Two months later, I find myself having the vision, with a spoken directive, to ‘make an album of all acoustic, stripped down Kate Bush covers and call it Naked Kate’. And so I did! Later I recognized that my talisman had worked so well, that rather than be inspired by her muse for my own music, I ended up recording an entire album of her music!”

The results are revelatory. Naked Kate isn’t a simple album; even at their most skeletal Bush’s chords, meters and melodies are still head-spinning (Even the sheet music for a Kate Bush song is downright frightening for a novice musician), but what Nymphya brings out in this audacious album is the essential heart of Kate’s music.

Using only the tools familiar to a folk singer from 100 years ago – and a voice like your six favorite singers combined into one incredibly tall package – Valentina O in her guise as Nymphya has triumphed in her loving quest to unearth the quintessence of Kate Bush’s songs.

You can read fan reviews and listen to highlights from the entire album here. https://shop.nymphya.com/products/naked-kate-signed-cd-deluxe-limited-special-edition

The results are glorious. Reducing these titles to their irreducible Song-ness only elevates and amplifies their beauty and strength.

This is now my favorite Kate Bush album.