Why don't we have a thread on Bat for Lashes?

LARUSSO?

"Daniel" reminds me a lot of The "A Forest" by The Cure. I guess it's the same bassline. And I love the cover too!

Her cover of "A Forest" is about the only thing worth a damn on whichever one of the Cure tributes it's on.

cover looks like a photoshoot. if it didn't look like a photoshoot it would be great (colours are nice). kinda weirdly flatly centred too.

LARUSSO?

― cutty, Wednesday, 11 March 2009 23:38 (4 days ago)

i've listened to "moon and moon" roughly 100 times since first hearing it yesterday.

I really don't like this - her aesthetic is terrible and the production is so shiny and polished it kind of kills any feeling of intimacy. I want records like this to be creaky and dusty with the sound of instruments creaking in the background, like White Chalk or that Grouper album from last year. This just sounds a bit hollow and empty.

i don't know if this is worth my time or not

nope

she can basically be dismissed with the words "you, sir, are no kate bush"

whew, thx. i suspected.

basically, you can tell exactly what kind of music she wants to make, and it's the sort of music which is GREAT when done well, but she has no personality or spirit in her voice and her songs are meandering, aimless, poorly things. and she thinks she's a lot crazier than she is.

dang lex you don't hold back

i like "daniel" it just seems unfinished to me, like it's really missing a MOMENT + i have to imagine that it's just a misguided attempt at being "understated" and "ethereal"

really i may never be able to get over seeing her live, way before any hype, at a night in an art gallery that a friend had curated, and i was like "aw, i should approve of her out of loyalty to my 15-yr-old self, who would have considered a trip-hop tori amos the very pinnacle of pop music, but really she's a bit shit". and then she paused and asked the audience to "howl like wolves" along to her song, at which point i think i just fled in horror to the room with the booze in it.

Two Suns now on Spotify:
http://open.spotify.com/album/7cj1dERc5yhFBqtxlRYGSe

I'm liking it. Not loving it... yet.

bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahaha

xp

plus points, i guess, for coming from a famous pakistani squash dynasty though

lol squash

liking this so far

for a second I was like "I thought squash were only native to the americas"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/arts/music/05play.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Bat%20for%20Lashes&st=cse

She tells the NY Times about what she's listening to: Telepathe;D M Stith; Cat Power; Cut Copy; Antony

record is turning out to be better than I expected after several random radio spins.

not getting much love, i see. i really quite like the new album. i don't think it's likely to reveal much more on future spins, but i kind of like how her voice seems to reconcile and bring together all the different sounds we hear from the instruments. not a massive step up from the album before, but it's got something going on.

Exactly. Also, "The Big Sleep" is all kinds of awesome.

Both the problem and the brilliant thing with artists like this is that the bar is set very very high. When it's done well it's genius, otherwise it can sound pretentious and a bit embarassing and Bat For Lashes falls well short of genius.

^OTM

the drums on this record are fantastic. who is it?

She certainly isn't getting much love from her record company here in the States, been to four stores this week and no one seems to be carrying it. I'll probably buy it online this weekend.

Well, I agree that she's not yet at the level of Kate Bush or Tori Amos or Bjork, but if you hold all new music to the standard of the best existing music with which it has any common elements, then you'll never like much. I thought the first Bat for Lashes record had some great moments, and I think this one lives up to its ambition more consistently. Ignore anybody who seems emtionally invested in belittling you for liking this (or anything). Their issue, not yours or hers.

I heard "Daniel" first, so maybe something else will displace it in time, but for the moment it's still my favorite song here. Like some great alternate-history drum-machine demo for Rumours...

this lady is some coffee shop shit

xpost

Well, I agree that she's not yet at the level of Kate Bush or Tori Amos or Bjork, but if you hold all new music to the standard of the best existing music with which it has any common elements, then you'll never like much.

I'm not holding it up to a standard, I'm just saying that this sort of thing is very very difficult to do well and those who do tend to be pretty spectacularly talented.

this lady is some coffee shop shit

kind of a tense atmosphere for your herbal tea drinking time, isn't it?

btw, two suns is way much better than fur and gold

the drums on this record are fantastic. who is it?

― cutty, Friday, April 10, 2009 12:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Chippendale, I'm told.

ha, srsly? most melodic playing i've ever heard from him.

Credits say percussion by Alex Thomas for most songs. Drum programming by Natasha and David Kosten.

no, i've confirmed through internet he plays drums on "glass" and that's the song which i was referring to

she can basically be dismissed with the words "you, sir, are no kate bush"

After four or five listens I can safely say that I like Two Suns more than at least 62% of Ms. Bush's studio albums. This record is aces.

this mention of Chippendale is intriguing me...

had assumed this was some OMM bollocks

I assumed this was some lame indie shit that I wouldn't like, I should probably stop doing that

'cuz I'm loving this right now

well the song "Daniel," haven't heard the album yet.

Well, I agree that she's not yet at the level of Kate Bush or Tori Amos or Bjork, but if you hold all new music to the standard of the best existing music with which it has any common elements, then you'll never like much.

I agree.

"Daniel" is really great, haven't heard the full album yet. But am curious.

Heard a couple other songs and I think she's alright. Strange no one seems to have mentioned the Siouxsie influence, it's pretty clearly there.

I'm just saying that this sort of thing is very very difficult to do well and those who do tend to be pretty spectacularly talented.

There are many spectacularly talented songstresses that don't pull it off. Usually the issue isn't talent, but an excess of "tasteful" influences that consign the whole into the category of "don't need to hear this" or "music for my mother"...

ilxor is right: what pulls BfL back from that abyss is that she has spent her youth immersed in the kind of music I myself did. And Siouxsie is definitely one of them. I heard it first in the chorused bass on the first album, but that soundworld of early-80's production is all over the two.

general prettiness throughout this but nothing else to say about it really. I suppose her voice is too unremarkable compared to the supposedly similar artists mentioned above, and that's a flaw depending on your outlook.

'Two Planets' stands out for me but why that plus 'Moon And Moon' if calling the album Two Suns?

Goes with 'two-hearted dream', Natasha and alter-ego (see back cover), etc.

The best parts on this are where she strikes out and sounds different, the drums on Glass are what hooked me almost immediately. I expected a starbucks till album and it was a smack across the face for being too jaded. There's at least four or five tracks here where she totally confounds expectations and they're just really great little moments. Considering that I really disliked her last album hearing something like Siren Song completely floored me.

Yes, Siren Song is the pefect example. I didn't care too much for her last album as well, but I simply can't stop listening to the new one. There's so many great tunes, brought with such sincerity, such honesty. It really is a surprise for me to like this so much.