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

it's very good. all her albums are good. she is great.

Thanks for the tip-off, been listening to it quite a lot over the last few days.

it's really good, and on trend? I hope it does well for her

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYvx4HYgqHU

Looking forward to seeing her in SF in February; though I've loved the shows of hers I've seen with bands this scaled down approach will be good too (I imagine that's a result of no longer being on a label). I really wish I'd been able to see some of the Bride shows which I don't think she ever toured in the US (she played churches?)

she's released a lot of good albums but this is the first one I've thought was truly great

was she dropped? jeesh.

gonna play this again right now!

“I think the label had high hopes that I’d be more commercial than I was,” she laughs now, “but I proved to myself and everyone else that I’m not.”

Khan’s second album, 2009’s Two Suns, was a concept album about a desert-born alter ego called Pearl. Her third, The Haunted Man, produced “Laura”, one of the best songs of her career, but only charted for a week. By the time she released her fourth, 2016’s The Bride, another concept record, this time about a bride-to-be whose fiance dies in a car crash on his way to the wedding, she could hardly wait to break free from her 10-year deal. And Parlophone weren’t exactly clamouring to keep her. The label’s initially high expectations, she says, “in the end started to work against me. It can be like a cloud that’s over you.”

Last year, the deal finally came to an end. Craving a change of scenery, the 39-year-old upped sticks to LA. She spent her days swimming, painting, going for sunset walks with her adopted dog Janice, teaching meditation to newly released prisoners, and going on long drives to forests with giant redwood trees. Though she says the city has a dark side – “The plastic surgery and the objectification of women that women are doing to themselves on Instagram” – when she stayed on its periphery, it suited her perfectly.

yeah it sounded like an amicable parting of ways. I'm sure it's a lot more work for her to be releasing stuff on her own now but she seems to also have the freedom now to do whatever it is she wants which is good; I hope she can afford to keep doing it.

I think every one of her albums is completely great, this one included. I absolutely love her.

My favorite thing she's done is the Sexwitch EP, utterly captivating. I wish she'd reissue it.

yeah, "Helelyos" is nuts. Reminds me to finish seeking out the original versions of those songs.

Learned a new figure of speech today: upped sticks

I've heard the originals and the idea of taking them and reinventing them as post-punk takes them to a new level.

she's doing a live stream at the moment (requires tix), will be up for a day, you can check her instagram for info. also she's having a baby (not in the livestream)

lol

Natasha being 40 is more wanna feel old for me than remembering having seen Pink Floyd twice in the 80s.

The Piper: Radio 4 - When strange music makes a girl vanish, a detective and her daughter uncover a terrifying force. Thriller starring Tamzin Outhwaite. Soundtrack by Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p08wdsyt

been revisiting two suns a lot lately.....what a good ass album

I haven't heard the debut but otherwise I really like all her albums

I just listened to Lost Girls again the other day. Shame that one was so underrated.

Diminishing returns after Two Suns imo, but the only one I haven't listened to since it came out is The Bride. The Haunted Man and Lost Girls are fine. I should check out that Sexwitch album again, because I remember nothing about it.

Anyway, check out the debut. It's nice.

Ooh, Sexwitch is great. Wonder why I memory-holed it.

Returns have only diminished from masterpiece to excellent to very good, and I'm okay with that. Still very fond of The Bride... "Joe's Dream"!

"Laura" might be my favorite song of hers.

did anyone ever figure out who the subject of that song (not, according to NK, named "laura") is

realizing now that i've only heard "what's a girl to do" from the debut (and that's from the video, which is an all-timer). is the rest of the debut similar to that one?

Uh... sort of? I'd say the vibe of the first two albums is very similar with the "big" singles ("What's A Girl To Do", "Daniel") kind of going off on their own thing

gotcha. i'll check it out.

speaking of the "what's a girl to do" video, seems like it's only on youtube in low quality, which is a bummer.

her voice is very soothing to me

I think all of her albums are fantastic to amazing. She's one of my favorite people currently making music. So glad I got to see her live just before the pandemic hit last year.

her voice is very soothing to me

becoming a bit of a stoner has really emphasized this aspect for me

I really liked her debut and then got pretty much obsessed with Two Suns in 2009. Like, listening every day on my walk to class obsessed. I saw her live just before The Haunted Man came out (my first time hearing "Laura" and a bunch of new songs) and she is a great performer indeed, but I somehow lost interest afterward that one. I don't remember much about The Bride, it vaguely registered in my head as 'more of the same'? I don't think I've ever even listened to Lost Girls. Guess I should go back and check those two records out, I think I've had a long enough break and her vibe/aesthetic will feel exciting to my ears again, even if the newest stuff isn't radically different to the oldies.

Lost Girls likely to be more your thing than the Bride, which is more impressionistic (ie: yes it's less memorable, I like it a lot though)

Cool! I just scanned The Bride's tracklisting and the only two tracks I can vaguely recall are Close Encounters (which I must've put on some playlist back then) and Sunday Love (which was on the radio). I'll give Lost Girls a listen tomorrow and perhaps come back to The Bride later.

I haven't revisited Two Suns since it came out, but I really enjoyed it at the time. Her subsequent albums struck me as vaguely pleasant and little more. I should probably give them all another spin.

Lost Girls is heavily underrated at large

hmm turns out fur and gold is excellent, feel dumb for overlooking it for years

it's all underrated and it's so weird we don't have a thread for her.

. Had I been working in the 1960s or 70s I would have ridden a wave of avant garde work into the mainstream

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/may/24/were-losing-sight-of-how-valuable-music-is-im-trying-to-carve-a-new-path-bat-for-lashes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAMO6HHfsdM

i like this

oh wow, I had pretty much given up on new music from her

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ahoz_pwtI

quite nice