Fur And Gold - Bat For Lashes

Natasha Khan, who under the pseudonym ‘Bat For Lashes’ has so far released two albums which were both nominated for Mercury Music Awards, has a massive crush on me. Absolutely huge. The poor girl could barely put two syllables together when I went to see her in concert, because she couldn’t stop looking at me. And y’know what? I have a crush on her too. She’s a fantastic singer/songwriter type, although she’s more Kate Bush than Kt Tunstall. She ...
...her music in a nice comfy blanket of spirituality, whilst feeding a tame wolf and painting with all the colours of the wind. Y’know – odd stuff. She accompanies her lyrics and haunted vocals with liberal dashes of harpsichord and violins, but don’t hold any of this against her, because it’s not pretentious music whatsoever. It’ll get you a stern nod of acceptance from hipsters, but at the same time it’s actually listenable and sets an atmospheric ... more

Natasha Khan, who under the pseudonym ‘Bat For Lashes’ has so far released two albums which were both nominated for Mercury Music Awards, has a massive crush on me. Absolutely huge. The poor girl could barely put two syllables together when I went to see her in concert, because she couldn’t stop looking at me. And y’know what? I have a crush on her too. She’s a fantastic singer/songwriter type, although she’s more Kate Bush than Kt Tunstall. She sings about all kinds of freakish and weird things, wrapping her music in a nice comfy blanket of spirituality, whilst feeding a tame wolf and painting with all the colours of the wind. Y’know – odd stuff. She accompanies her lyrics and haunted vocals with liberal dashes of harpsichord and violins, but don’t hold any of this against her, because it’s not pretentious music whatsoever. It’ll get you a stern nod of acceptance from hipsters, but at the same time it’s actually listenable and sets an atmospheric mood suitable for any séance you may ever wish to hold. And who among us hasn’t ever been tempted to hold the occasional séance?

The album highlight is a song about a wizard, although she also sings about seal parties and bats and fur-lined trophies and a girl called Prescilla. I’ve never really caught on to many of the lyrics, despite her cut-glass voice which punctuates the words in all the moodiest places, but whenever I have allowed myself to try and work out the meanings of the tracks I tend to find myself hearing lines like “the queens and court jesters clapped, adored”, and retreat back into the music. This is an album where mood and atmosphere take precedence over writing music with a meaning, and the result ends up sounding like one of those last-morning dreams you have, the sort you have just before you wake up on a sweaty summer morning. Y’know – odd stuff. Another consequence of this decision is that a lot of the songs don’t tend to work very well on their own.

Tracks like ‘Sarah’ and ‘Prescilla’ are brilliant no matter where you hear them, or in what context. The former, employing a bass guitar to great effect as it dissembles the life of a girl-chav (technical term: tramp). She goes out on a boat sailing at night, and then she drowns or something, but it’s not as if she was making anything of her life anyway. The music sounds like deep water, and the percussion beneath the bass guitar gives the feeling of momentum, and it’s not as stupid as it sounds, it’s a good song. Prescilla is even better, harpsichord and drums joining together to form underplayed verses which lead into a luxurious chorus. It’s the best pop song on the album, which must be why they released it as a single. Other songs don’t fare as well though, and tracks like ‘Seal Jubilee’ and ‘Sad Eyes’ (both ballads, I seem to have a thing about ballads) only just manage to get along when they’re a part of the whole album. Individually, they both fall apart. There’s not enough going on with the music, and the lyrics don’t quite hit home hard enough for that not to matter.

The start of the album is brilliant, and try to find a clip of her singing ‘Horse And I’ online somewhere (better yet, go out and y’know, watch her live) because when she sings the song live she really stretches her voice and hits some utterly ridiculous notes, which is always a fantastic thing to see. As it is, the album version is rather lush anyway, striking the tone which continues for the rest of the album. It also tends to lead into another song – as is typically the case with albums – called ‘Trophy’, which is also fantastic and carried along with a heavy bass guitar sound and a stirring rhythm section and an unknown male voice who sings along in the background. This then leads into ‘Tahiti’, which is a surprising turn of events, eh, and ‘Tahiti’ is the sort of ballad-y song which you’ll either like or love. Lots and lots of strings on that one. Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about in this paragraph is ‘The Wizard’, which is my absolute favourite song on the album, and which absolutely couldn’t be done by any other singer. A keyboard plays high notes while a bass cruises along below and the song seems as dreamlike as any you could ever imagine to hear. I think pirates would like to have this song play while they’re sailing around at night-time. The song requires her to time her voice to the second, and if you want to hear her sing it live then I TOTALLY HAVE A VIDEO OF THAT FOR YOU. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6mZiezPnBo

She’s not afraid to experiment (y’know, with the songs), which results in the most famous song she’s done so far, ‘What’s A Girl To Do?’ Taking a leaf out of Nancy Sinatra’s book, or maybe that would be one belonging to William Shatner, the verses are spoken, punctuated by big drums smashes in-between each line and a shimmery harpsichord sound fluttering over everything. I imagine that when she goes to bed at night she sings this song to herself while looking mournfully out her window and thinking of me. It’s not just on the more up-tempo songs where she shines, though – ‘Bat’s Mouth’ is not the easiest song to get into, but after hearing it a few times it starts to grow more and more resonant, for some reason. The album grows a little in strength towards the end because of this, and ‘Sarah’ leading into ‘I Saw A Light’ ends things on a note of triumph and glory. The final song, ‘I Saw A Light’ grows and grows as the song goes on, until Khan is practically screaming out. And then it closes off into darkness, and you feel the sudden need to replay the album.
 

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