ONE of the longest silences in popular music is about to end after Kate Bush, the inspiration for a generation of female artists, announced her comeback.

Twelve years after her last release, one of pop’s most mercurial performer has delivered a surprise Christmas present to her long-suffering fan club: “The album is nearly finished and will be out next year.”

The record features the last work of Michael Kamen, the composer and arranger, who died last year. She has also been working with Mick Karn, bassist with the Eighties new romantic group Japan, drummer Stuart Elliott and jazz percussionist Peter Erskine. The London Metropolitan Orchestra will feature with two classical musicians, Emma Murphy and Susanna Pell.

Bush, 46, burst on to the music scene as a 17-year-old with the swooping Brontëinspired Wuthering Heights. She was noted as a unique performer who combined musical theatre, dance, poetry and rock. But she retired from live performance in 1979 and her recordings became more rare, despite huge successes including the Hounds of Love in 1984.

In 1993 she released an album and a self-directed film entitled The Red Shoes, then retreated to her home near Reading to sculpt and work on an untitled project. Her record company, EMI, has waited patiently for the results. Her long absence even inspired a novel, Waiting For Kate Bush, by John Mendelssohn.

Now patience is rewarded. Bush writes on her website: “There are some lovely performances and I hope you will all feel it’s been worth the wait.” She said she had been busy looking after her son Bertie, 6, with her partner, the guitarist Danny McIntosh. But what everyone, not least EMI, would like to know is when the album will be released. “We’ll let you know,” Bush writes. March has been hinted at.

Bush returns as a new generation of artists recall her as an inspiration. OutKast, the US rap group, want to produce her next record. Madonna, Bjork, P. J. Harvey and Katie Melua have revealed the debt they owe to the doctor’s daughter from Bexleyheath, southeast London. A cover of Hounds of Love by hotly-tipped rock band the Futureheads is to precede her return to the charts.

Peter Gabriel, a friend and collaborator on the hit Don’t Give Up, explained her absence. He said: “She’s being a mum and loving it. So music’s gone from being full-time to being part-time, so that slows you down. She pointed out [she takes] even longer than I take.”

Bush began writing hits, including The Man with the Child in his Eyes, aged 13, and was groomed by EMI after being discovered by Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd. After retiring from the stage she built a studio in her home and spent years poring over overdubs for songs such as Running Up That Hill.

The music industry sought to lure her back with the offer of a Brits Lifetime Achievement Award but she rejected it because she would have to perform live.

Three years ago she accepted Ivor Novello and Q Magazine awards, even making a surprise appearance to perform Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb with Gilmour at the Royal Albert Hall, prompting speculation of a return to the concert stage.

THE COMEBACK KIDS

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Frank Sinatra: career hits rock bottom in 1949 with flop concerts after public affair with Ava Gardner. Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity in 1953 begins rehabilitation, followed by Songs For Swinging Lovers

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