FEATURE:
Modern Heroines
PHOTO CREDIT: Camera Press
Part Fifty: Bat for Lashes
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FOR this fiftieth part of Modern Heroines…
PHOTO CREDIT: David Levene for The Observer New Review
I am shining the spotlight on Bat for Lashes (a.k.a. Natasha Khan). I will end with a playlist of her best tracks. Like I do with all of the artists, I want to bring in some interviews and a review or two of the most-recent album. The fifth album, Lost Girls, was released in 2019 and followed 2016’s The Bride. I love Lost Girls, as it takes sounds from the 1980s. We get a lovely melting of 1980s sounds together with some of the best lyrics Bat for Lashes has ever delivered (I shall refer to Khan as Bat for Lashes). I am going to bring in a couple of reviews for Lost Girls soon. Before that, I am going to source some interviews that were conducted around the time of the album’s release. In this interview with The Independent, we discover how Bat for Lashes found her way to Los Angeles:
“Ten years ago, Natasha Khan, aka Bat for Lashes, was poised to be the next big thing. As tolerance for laddy indie bands reached saturation point, her debut album Fur and Gold – spectral polyrhythms you could dance to – was a breath of fresh air. It was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Two Brit Award nominations followed – for British Breakthrough Act and British Female Solo Artist – and Khan was invited to support Radiohead on tour. The major label (Parlophone) to which she had just signed could hardly believe their luck – they had surely found the next Kate Bush. But things didn’t quite go as planned. “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.
She also looked to the 2014 Iranian vampire film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night for the way it melds together different cultures. “Jasmine”, with its cluttered soundscapes and sensual melody, is inspired by the sensory overload of both LA and childhood trips to Pakistan. “My impression of Pakistan was the heat hitting you when you get off the plane like a hairdryer in your face,” she recalls, “and the smell of jasmine and sewage and dogs and markets. The similarities to LA are that hot, dusty climate, the desert, the heady flower smells.”
She’s used to feeling the pull of different climes. “Being half-Pakistani, half-English, and growing up in England but going over there and then travelling a lot, I really feel like this conduit between different cultures and landscapes,” she says. “I resonate with a lot of different places and people and religions and looks and styles.”
Born in London to an English mother and Pakistani father, Khan was raised in Hertfordshire, first by both parents, and then – when her father left – by just her mother. At secondary school, she was called a “f***ing Paki” by her classmates, so she would bunk off, or get suspended for swearing and throwing chairs at teachers. “Coming from a broken home and all those difficult things,” she says. “In my mind I was going to places that were sublimating the pain into a dark but beautiful place. I’d go on little road trips in my mind, into magical places, because it was cathartic”.
If you have not listened to Lost Girls, then go and check it out. It is one of the best albums from 2019. With every album, we get something different and fascinating from Bat for Lashes. I have been listening to it on and off since 2019, and I always get something new each time I listen.
The second interview that I want to quote from comes from The Guardian. Bat for Lashes discusses the concept for Lost Girls and ‘80s sources of influence:
“You’ve talked about wanting this new album to be fun, full of romance and more commercial. How did it come about?
I had moved away from London, where I’d lived for seven years, and finished my contract with EMI. My plan initially was to go to Los Angeles to focus on scriptwriting and doing music for film. The first song on the album, Kids in the Dark, was actually written for a Stephen King TV series [Castle Rock] – but the music supervisor Charles [Scott] and I had such a good time that we decided to keep meeting. I didn’t even know whether I was going to make an album again – I wanted to have a real break and leave everything behind me. And so when this album started happening, it was sort of a secret – and nobody really knew about it until it was nearly done.
Was there an overarching concept?
I was developing a script for a film called The Lost Girls. It was heavily influenced by 80s children’s films and vampire films, many set in Portland and California. But as the songs progressed, I felt like I was writing the film soundtrack. Music does tend to overtake film ideas, as it comes out much more easily.
Which 80s films did you have in mind?
The Lost Boys, obviously, is a close link, and seeing LA’s hazy sunsets is making me think of films like ET and The Goonies. Moving to LA, I’ve basically been plonked inside the sets of all the films I loved as a kid.
What switched you on to music?
I saw Michael Jackson on his Bad tour when I was nine, with my mum, and I remember his Thriller video coming out – that was really exciting. And later on, seeing how pop musicians like Kate Bush and David Bowie were using the more theatrical aspects of music had a big influence on me. At art college, the way we approached music was very closely linked with visual art and performance. With my first band I said, “I want us to make headdresses”, and so we’d go down to the haberdashery and buy a bunch of sequins and old lady brooches in antique shops. It was a hodgepodge and it probably didn’t even make sense, but I was trying to figure out how we were going to stand out on stage and express ourselves in a playful way.
By temperament, do you lean towards sunny Californian optimism or British gloom?
I go between the two. I think this album is demonstrating a side of me that’s happy and loves to dance, laugh and be silly – that’s a big part of who I am. I spent a long time trawling the depths and the darkness in my music. But being in LA, maybe it has liberated that side of me that is more fun”.
I feel Lost Girls is a transformative and important album where Bat for Lashes moved to a new stage. Not to say The Bride was a hard album to make, though one can hear something more open and freer through Lost Girls. This was discussed a bit with FADER in 2019:
“Last time we talked in 2016, you said you were yearning for a sense of balance where you were less obsessively dedicated to work. Have you achieved that?
I was like, I’m not going to make music, I’m going to rescue a puppy, have a nice boyfriend, cook, but obviously I just have to do creative things. I wanted to focus on writing, painting, and taking desert trips, but that served to fill the cauldron of inspiration. It was bubbling away, and that’s what made Lost Girls so effortless and easy — it was popping out because I was almost not wanting it to.
Through this whole process I’ve managed to hold down a relationship, go for walks with my dog, and have a community of friends. But I’ve also made work, and I’m making work. Touring is the biggest thing that takes you away, which I’ve yet to deal with. But up until this point it’s been a symbiotic relationship between creativity and life.
Around the late 30s it feels like decisions carry a kind of permanence — doors are closing, even as our perspective and desires shift and other doors open. It’s hard to…
…let go. I completely get it. And the power that you had is different. Your looks and the confidence you feel in your 20s, that you took for granted. Now I feel like I’m not as powerful visually, but I’m getting more powerful spiritually and creatively. It’s a revolving door instead of a closing one. There’s a dynamic shift in what I use as power now.
What do you use as power now?
Creativity is my power, and I still have that. It’s sad to admit, but in our visual world there's a lot of power connected to youth, beauty, and vibrancy. My beauty might not always be on the surface, but in the essence of who I am. When someone walks in the room, if they have this incredible presence they can be attractive to everyone there. Before, I was attractive because I was young, but now in questioning my attractiveness, I’m trying not to let it make me feel under-confident. I do feel beautiful, but it’s not always going to be that way, and I want to know that my essence is really robust and beautiful. I love myself enough that it will be my attractiveness and my power.
It’s hard to talk about these things because it’s not really mentioned that much — your 30s or 40s, how difficult it can be in the world we live in. We all feel like we’re supposed to be these badasses — we’re feminists and we don’t care about that stuff — but it’s not true. It’s a vulnerable time, and an opportunity to realize that there are cycles and to understand that with a death there comes grieving of a certain identity of who you were. How do I deepen my experience rather than freaking out and feeling less than something I was? It’s not less than — it’s just different”.
I shall wrap up with a couple of positive reviews for Lost Girls. I am not sure what is next for Bat for Lashes and whether we will get some new music this year at all. In their review, this is what CLASH had to say:
“Her fifth record was inspired by several changes in Khan’s life, such as completing a record deal and moving from London to L.A. The idea for ‘Lost Girls’ came from developing a film idea about a vampire girl-gang and thinking about the 80’s films she grew up with.
Working with writer and producer Charles Scott IV, she crafted the album nocturnally, with a private, insular process.
‘Kids In The Dark’, the lead single to be taken from the album, is a gauzy power ballad- which was actually written in a day despite its dreamy nature. It’s a romantic song and Bat For Lashes’ vocals sound wonderfully haunting. You almost forget everything else around you (“Lying next to you/We could be on the moon”). Writing it made Khan realise that "living in LA, driving around in these peachy sunsets, falling in love, being in the car at night, winding the windows down, all the hot air and the neon, the mountains – all this stuff was permeating my consciousness, and making the most romantic impression."
‘The Hunger’ is synth-heavy and mesmerizing. It continues that romantic notion and there is a sense of urgency to the song. It is a powerful, mystical anthem. About crafting the track, Khan said, “There's nothing like this feeling of translating something that's in your DNA, part of who you are energetically, coming out in music. Like it matches a thumbprint inside of you."
Her latest single,’Desert Man’ is uplifting, while conveying Khan’s heartbreak (“Love is a nowhere land”). The breathy vocals are a joy to listen to. ‘So Good’ uses Middle Eastern synth patterns whilst sounding like a traditional pop song (“Why does it hurt so good?”).
Despite being heavily influenced by the 80’s, ‘Lost Girls’ has a timeless feel and is sonically pleasing”.
To round off, I want to bring in a review from AllMusic. I love the detail and depth they expend in the review. They highlight some interesting things:
“By the time Bat for Lashes released Lost Girls, the '80s synth pop revival of the 2000s and 2010s had lasted several years longer than the style's original run. More than 30 years later, the magic, hope, and romance of that decade's pop culture and music -- especially when contrasted with its threatening political climate -- still resonated. The imaginary '80s of the 21st century heightened the era's theatricality into a dream world capable of expressing the grandest feelings and desires of artists like M83 and, on her fifth album, Natasha Khan. Her affinity for the '80s is nothing new; her cover of Bruce Springsteen's 1985 ballad "I'm on Fire" was one of the more revelatory moments from her debut album, Fur and Gold. Still, she's never immersed herself so completely in the sound and feel of those years as she does on Lost Girls, an album title that hints at Khan's own disappearing act. Following 2016's The Bride, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting and soundtrack work. The time she spent exploring other fantasy worlds rubs off on Lost Girls: It's one of her most engaging albums in years, and a testament to the magic within her music. Fittingly, it often feels like a collection of themes from a multiplex worth of imagined '80s films.
"Kids in the Dark" (which Khan initially wrote for Hulu's Stephen King anthology series Castle Rock) begins Lost Girls with a swooning love scene; "So Good"'s hooky sexual power games are straight out of an erotic thriller; and "Jasmine" traces the exploits of a femme fatale biker who cloaks her misdeeds in the "June gloom haze." On the more impressionistic tracks, Khan has as much fun reveling in period-accurate musical details -- muted guitars, glowing synths, and rippling Synclaviers abound -- as she does telling her L.A. stories. "Feel for You"'s funky rhythm and laser-beam synths make it a perfect roller-skating jam, while "Vampires"' late-night saxophone and swirling guitars borrowed from the Cure's Disintegration embody the '80s at their cheesiest and most glamorous.
Lost Girls' power only grows on its second half, when Khan leans into the era's unabashed romance. On the gorgeous "Peach Sky," her unrequited yearning basks in an L.A. sunset, and though "Safe Tonight" may be one of the album's most traditionally structured pop songs, it still leaves her plenty of room to cast a tender spell. Khan also blends the strengths of her previous work into Lost Girls' world skillfully. Her union of the mythical, spiritual, and sensual on "Desert Man" evokes Two Suns' searching, only with more distinct imagery tethering its gauzy sounds. When "Mountains" transforms from an archetypal Bat for Lashes piano ballad into a soaring finale, it's clear that Lost Girls is an apt, and winning, culmination of Khan's music. As she celebrates the renewal of disappearing into a new identity or the freedom of getting lost in the moment, her visions feel more vivid, and more real, than they have in some time”.
Go and seek out Bat for Lashes and listen to her music. Since her 2006 debut, Fur and Gold, she has grown as an artist and delivered some truly sensational music – though her debut is incredible! I think that Bat for Lashes is going to be seen as an icon years from now. We are going to hear more incredible music; there will be a lot of anticipation to see what comes next. I wanted to give a nod and tip of the cap to…
A tremendous talent.