Bat For Lashes

The project of Natasha Khan, Bat for Lashes ponders life, death, and love with mythic storytelling and equally ambitious sounds. While the mystical indie-rock of her Mercury Prize-nominated 2006 debut album Fur and Gold drew comparisons to Kate Bush and Björk, the singer/songwriter and multimedia artist fully established herself as a creative force with the cosmic art-pop of 2009′s Two Suns, a grand showcase for the scope of her ideas and her ethereal yet powerful voice. Though she took a more restrained approach on 2012′s direct The Haunted Man, it was packed with as much sensuality and cinematic drama as 2016′s The Bride and 2019′s Lost Girls. On 2024′s The Dream of Delphi, Khan paired some of her most experimental music with themes — motherhood, creation, femininity — that hit close to home. Born into the Khan family of squash players — which included her father Rahmat and her grandfather Nasrullah — the half-Pakistani, half-English singer/songwriter moved to Hertfordshire, England when she was five and taught herself to play piano when she was 11. She conceived of Bat for Lashes while on a trip to San Francisco, drawing on inspirations like Steve Reich and Susan Hiller, as well as the multimedia installations she learned to create while studying art at the University of Brighton. She continued to work on her music as she studied childcare and taught at a nursery school, ultimately releasing Bat for Lashes’ debut single “The Wizard” early in 2006 on her own She Bear Records imprint. Her acclaimed debut album, Fur and Gold, arrived that September, cracking the Top 50 of the U.K. Album Charts and eventually attaining Gold sales certification in the U.K. The album was shortlisted for the 2007 Mercury Prize and Khan won that year’s ASCAP Vanguard Award. In 2008, she earned nominations for British Breakthrough Act and British Female Solo Artist at the Brit Awards, toured with Radiohead, and contributed a cover of “A Forest” to the Cure tribute album Perfect as Cats. While writing songs for her second album, Khan traveled to the Joshua Tree and lived in Brooklyn, finding inspiration in local bands like Gang Gang Dance and TV on the Radio. Two Suns, an ambitious concept album revolving around Khan’s hedonistic alter-ego Pearl, arrived in April 2009 and featured collaborations with Yeasayer and Scott Walker. A Top Five hit in the U.K., where it was quickly certified Gold, Two Suns reached number two on the Heatseekers Albums Chart in the U.S. Like Fur and Gold, the album was nominated for the Mercury Prize; Khan received another British Female Solo Artist Brit Award nomination, and the album’s lead single “Daniel” won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song. Later in the year, a special edition of Two Suns appeared and featured a cover of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody.” Bat for Lashes’ Two Suns tour ranged from 2009 festival dates to South American shows with Coldplay early the following year. Khan also released several songs in 2010, including the Beck collaboration “Let’s Get Lost” for the Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack and the double A-sid single “Howl”/“Wild Is the Wind” for Record Store Day. Creatively drained after the Two Suns tour, Khan combatted writer’s block with dance lessons and life-drawing classes, eventually writing songs with inspirations ranging from the 1970 film Ryan’s Daughter to the raw honesty of Patti Smith. Created with a team that included longtime producers David Costen and Dan Carey, Beck, Dave Sitek, James Ford, and Charlotte Hatherley, Bat for Lashes’ introspective, restrained third album The Haunted Man appeared in October 2012. It became Khan’s second Top 10 album in the U.K. and earned her a Best British Female Brit Award nomination; in the U.S., it reached 64 on the 200 Albums Chart. The album’s single “Laura” was nominated for Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the Ivor Novello Awards. Khan spent the next few years collaborating with other musicians, most notably Carey and the band TOY on 2013′s “The Bride,” a cover of a pre-revolution Iranian folk song that Carey released via his Speedy Wunderground label. The project expanded into Sexwitch, whose self-titled 2015 album featured covers of psych-folk songs hailing from Morocco, Thailand, Iran, and the United States. Additionally, Khan appeared on Damon Albarn’s solo album Everyday Robots and reunited with Beck for the soundtrack to Under the Indigo Moon, a short film that accompanied the release of Khan’s line of sportswear for the fashion house YMC. For Bat for Lashes’ fourth album The Bride, a brooding yet uplifting work about a woman whose fiancé is killed in a crash on the way to their wedding, Khan worked with Carey as well as Jacknife Lee, Simone Felice, and Ben Christophers. The album’s lead single, “I Do,” arrived in February 2016; Khan also directed a short film by the same name that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival that April, with The Bride itself arriving in July. Peaking at number nine on the U.K. Albums Chart, it also reached 17 on the Top Alternative Albums Chart in the U.S. Following a move from London to Los Angeles, Khan issued her fifth full-length Lost Girls in September 2019. A hazy, synth-drenched tribute to 1980s music and film luminaries like the Blue Nile, Bananarama, and John Williams, it hit number 13 on the U.K. Albums Chart and number 14 on the Independent Albums chart in the U.S. Also in 2019, Khan worked with composer Dominik Scherrer on the score to BBC 1′s supernatural miniseries Requiem, which won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Television Soundtrack. In 2020, Bat for Lashes released the live EP The Boys of Summer and a cover of the Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun.” That year, Khan also gave birth to her first child. Becoming a mother in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic was a transformative experience that had a profound impact on Bat for Lashes’ next album. Inspired by her renewed connection to the earth and the seasons of life as well as her closeness to her daughter, Khan explored these ideas on May 2024′s The Dream of Delphi. The album’s keyboard-based songs and instrumental pieces revolved around the Motherwitch, a character who also appeared in a hand-illustrated tarot deck Khan released in 2023. ~ Heather Phares