Out on her own

IN John Mendelssohn’s 2004 novel Waiting For Kate Bush the protagonist threatens suicide unless his musical heroine releases a new album in six months.

You can be assured, by the close of the book his wish has not been granted.

Fans often know as much about their favourite pop star as about family members, so the British singer of Waterford extraction breaks all the rules: she is unfathomable. Living the life of a mid-20th century Hollywood recluse rather than a cultish singer with a respectable following, she has spent the past 30 years in obscurity in misty Cornwall, displaying the creative urgency of a glacier creeping across the Arctic ice-shelf. Since 1989 she has put out two albums, the last in 2005.