'It's been a long time' – Kate Bush 'very keen' to work on a new album

The Hounds Of Love singer, 66, last released a studio album in 2011 called 50 Words For Snow.

Two years ago, her record-breaking hit Running Up That Hill was named the UK’s biggest song of the summer for 2022 by the Official Charts Company following its global resurgence in popularity after it was featured in the fourth series of Stranger Things.

“I’m very keen to start working on a new album,” Bush told Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

She added: “I’ve got lots of ideas. I’m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space. It’s been a long time.”

Bush also said that any new music she puts out has “got to be different”, as all of her previous albums are different from each other.

When asked about whether she would perform on stage soon, Bush said that while she had loved performing she is “not there yet”.

Bush also spoke to the Today programme about her new short animation, titled Little Shrew, for the charity War Child, which she said “has taken up a lot of time this year” and added, once it is finished, “I’ll be ready to start anew”.

The music for the short film is a new 2024 radio edit of the track Snowflake, which originally appeared on her 2011 album.

Bush started working on the animation not long after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, which she describes as a “shock for all of us”.

“I came up with this idea for a little storyboard, and thought that actually, more people would probably be more empathetic towards a little creature rather than a human,” she said.

“So I came up with the idea of it being a little shrew.”

Bush added that “we’ve all become really desensitised by the violence that we see in the films all the time”.

She said: “You know, where people are just being slaughtered, really. But if a dog were to be killed in a film, everyone would be up in arms. I mean it’s a terrible thing to say, but I think there is an element of truth in that.

“I think we’ve all been through very difficult times. These are dark times that we’re living in. And I think to a certain extent, everyone is just worn out,” she added.

“I mean, we went through the pandemic, and that was a huge shock.

“And I think really we felt that once that was over, if you could ever say it was over, that we would all be able to sort of get on with some kind of normal life.

“But in fact, it just seems to be, you know, going from one situation to another and more wars seem to be breaking out all the time.”

Bush is known for songs including chart-topper Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, Cloud Busting and This Woman’s Work – and has had three number one UK albums with Never For Ever, Hounds Of Love and compilation record The Whole Story.