Released on 16 September 1985 "Hounds Of Love" was the fifth studio album by the English musician Kate Bush, the album was a commercial and artistic success and marked a return to the public eye for Bush after the relatively low sales of her previous album, 1982's The Dreaming. The album's lead single, "Running Up That Hill", became Bush's biggest hit, initially peaking at No. 3 upon its original 1985 release. The album's first side produced three further singles, "Cloudbusting", "Hounds of Love", and "The Big Sky", all of which reached the UK Top 40. The second side, subtitled The Ninth Wave, forms a conceptual suite about a woman drifting alone in the sea at night.
The album was considered to be Bush's magnum opus, Hounds of Love received critical acclaim and often ranks among the greatest albums of all time. It was Bush's second album to top the UK Albums Chart and her first to reach the top 40 on the US Billboard 200. In 2022, the album re-entered various charts, including reaching number one on the Billboard Top Alternative Albums, due to the appearance of "Running Up That Hill" in the fourth season of Netflix series Stranger Things.
Back in the summer of 1983, Bush began laying the groundwork for Hounds of Love at her home recording onto 8-track equipment, using a LinnDrum, Fairlight and piano. Wanting to retain the feel and atmosphere of these early recordings, she had them transferred to 24-track to build the final versions around once recording sessions officially began in November 1983. Following these sessions, as well as several recording sessions in Ireland during the spring of 1984, Bush began overdubbing and mixing the album in a process that took a year and the album was finished in June 1985. The recording sessions included use of the Fairlight CMI synthesiser, piano, traditional Irish instruments, and layered vocals. "Waking the Witch" quotes from the chorus of the sea shanty "Blood Red Roses." The chorale in "Hello Earth" is a segment from the traditional Georgian song "Tsintskaro", performed by the Richard Hickox Singers. The lines "It's in the trees! It's coming!" from the beginning of the title track are sampled from a seance scene from the 1957 British horror film Night of the Demon, spoken by actor Maurice Denham.
The album was produced as two suites, with side one being subtitled Hounds of Love and side two a seven-track concept piece subtitled The Ninth Wave. The album has been described as post-progressive because Bush voices themes of love and womanly passion rather than the usual male viewpoints associated with progressive rock
The Ninth Wave uses a great many textures to express the story: in the style of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Arthurian poems, Bush pursues a vision quest, taking the listener through a death and rebirth. The warmth of familiar sleep is cut by dangerous speed, ice and frigid water, an otherworldly trial and judgement, an out-of-body limbo, and finally a vigorous emergence and grounding in life energy. The disparate musical elements of "The Ninth Wave" were described by Ron Moy as "classically prog" because of their evident experimentation, and because Bush wholly embraces European music traditions without a trace of American influence.
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