Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at 40: A Birthday Celebration Listening Party

Event information

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at 40: A Birthday Celebration Listening Party and in conversation with the author and musician Leah Kardos

Kate Bush’s groundbreaking album was released to immediate acclaim on 16 September 1985.

Hounds Of Love invites you to not only listen, but to cross the boundaries of sensory experience into realms of imagination and possibility. Poised and accessible, yet still experimental and complex, with Hounds Of Love Bush mastered the art of her studio-based songcraft, finally achieving full control of her creative process.


40 years to the day of its release join Leah Kardos, author of Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love (33 1/3) in conversation with the historian of vinyl records and the album Travis Elborough in an evening of deep listening and lively Bush appreciation.

Praise for Leah Kardos and her book Kate Bush’s House of Love (33 1/3)


This 33 1/3 puts the artist's work into context of the time it was made, drawing attention to the craft of Bush's songwriting, production and sound design in addition to nuggets of information such as references to popular culture and call backs to her earlier work … This [book] will enrich the experience of listening to the music and leave you wanting more.
Louder Than War 


Hounds of Love belongs to any self-respecting record collection and this book, which sends you back with fresh ears to a work you thought you knew, serves as a fine companion to it.
The Business Post 


Kardos captures what makes Hounds Of Love so magical.
Buzz Magazine


A bijou book bursting with insight and passion … A fan's eye work of deep-dive music criticism at its most immersive.
Record Collector 


Combines the technical detail of the author's background as a musicologist with the … enthusiasm of a nerdy devotee.
The Spectator 


Serves up a personal track-by-track commentary on one of the most influential and beloved long-players of the 80s.
Classic Pop


Leah Kardos is a senior lecturer in music at Kingston University London, UK, where she co-founded the Visconti Studio with music producer Tony Visconti. She specialises in the areas of record production, pop aesthetics and criticism, and exploring interdisciplinary approaches to creative practice. She is also the author of Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie (Bloomsbury, 2022), which was included as one of The Wire’s ‘Best Books of 2022’.


Described by the Guardian as “one of Britain’s finest pop culture historians”, Travis Elborough’s books include The Long-Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records that inspired the BBC4 documentary 'When Albums Ruled the World', in which he also appeared.