When an album comes along and truly takes your breath away – side-steps you, flits around in your peripheral vision, pulls the ground from under your feet and leaves you convulsing amid a galaxy of stars – it’s generally unexpected, something for which you never prepared, a yet unconquered combination, a snapshot from outside your comfort zone. But with Bat For Lashes it’s not quite like that.
Bat For Lashes is, though also an intoxicatingly capable band, the realisation of one Natasha Khan’s beautiful visions – and in building her temple of sound she uses cornerstones of reference already very familiar to you. One listen to her hypnotic debut ‘Fur & Gold’ will see you taking comfort in the tender homage she pays to her influences; the numb sadness of Beth Gibbons, the liberation of Kate Bush, the effortless and fragile extremes of Bjork, the toiled emotion of PJ Harvey. Yet even though she is apparently so easily mapped out, she has succeeded in bringing a notable spice to a familiar mix.
It is one of the most elegant recordings of the year, there is little doubt of that. Every strand of instrumentation, every percussive stanza, every fluid vocal trail, its echo and subsequent reply, is crafted carefully, from impulse and with conviction. It’s all about the vocal, but it’s a record with a strong pulse, pushed forward by and imaginative bed of rhythms, backed by the deep musical support of a host of guardian angels, dramatic and dreamy. If the biography on her website is to be believed the nomadic Khan remembers falling asleep in Pakistan as a child to the sounds of sung prayers and howling dogs, and when aged 11 her parents separated she spent nights playing ceremonial freeform jazz piano to will her father back. There is a quasi-religious rituality consuming the album that might attest to those memories.
There is a central, hypnotic beat running through the core of most songs, so pronounced in ‘Trophy’ that it becomes almost sinister, darkly tribal – a singular bass beat joined by s sunken rattling and a curtly clapped rhythm – a fitting backdrop for a chilling Nick Cave-esque co-vocal and her own impassioned calls for redemption. ‘What’s A Girl To Do’ feels like a breathy Bjork and Lamb duelling within the Labyrinth, the sorrowful piano ballad ‘Sad Eyes’ has peaks so well-defined it feels like a subdued Amanda Palmer from the Dresden Dolls working a Tori Amos tune, and the starkly-postured ‘Priscilla’ is like an Everything But The Girl track with an ethnic flavour, superfluous ambience removed, starched and regimented.
No aspect of this record is miscast, everything is reflective of a unique character and makes enviable use of challenging and seemingly insurmountable influences. It is both familiar and surprising. And it’s one of your favourite records of the year, even if you don’t know it yet.