We’ve waited for four years for Bat For Lashes’ follow-up album to The Haunted Man. When we saw the mysterious video for I Do, I couldn’t hold my excitement. Now, it’s finally here. The Bride’s beautiful melodies combined with Natasha Khan’s powerful voice was certainly worth the wait. It’s pure magic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thDACGLOPIs
I Do starts us off by introducing us to the melodic, beautiful sound that travels throughout the album. Its lightness provides the perfect appetiser for the lyrical feast that’s to come. It leads into Joe’s Dream, which is the perfect example of her incredible storytelling skills. She creates vivid images in our heads through her powerful descriptions. “There’s a tear in my lover’s eyes // he’s at my window // it’s a gloomy night // said he dreamt of God’s searchlight// it remembered his name.”
Honeymooning Alone presents another chapter to the heartbreaking story that we heard in In God’s House. The tail begins with car crash sound, which connects to sinister melody. The chorus sends chills down your spine as the meaning of the haunting harmonies of “honeymooning alone” set in your mind. The pace quickens as Sunday Love starts. Her stunning voice is still the star of the show as she breaks our hearts while singing about an unfaithful partner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBfZooPrmfo
Widow’s Peak is the reason why I love Khan. She doesn’t sing in this one, just speaks. Her voice is clear and strong, while the music is light and hypnotic. It suddenly grows creepy as she says the words “the widow is on my trail”. It’s the description of a nightmare, but I can’t stop listening to it.
In If I Knew, the light piano leads us to a story about someone saying goodbye to an easy relationship that ended without any bad blood. When she sings “if I knew what I know now”, you brace yourself for the worst. To everyone’s surprise, she finishes her sentence with “I would never turn it back around”. It’s such a gentle way to move on from someone you once loved. Don’t you wish every relationship was like this?
I wish I Will Love Again had been moved to the end of the album. It would have been the perfect message to finish with. The beating drum acts as a beating heart. It’s slow, yet uplifting. She reminds herself that she “will love again” with some beautiful harmonies, creating a hopeful atmosphere.
The final two songs come all too soon, but they leave us on a high. In Your Bed reminds us about the joy of the simple things. The clapping sound is intertwined with the music to create the rawness that embodies the honesty and realness of the track. Clouds keeps the slow yet moving melody as she sings of the white and fluffy things that float above, but once again, the music changes to a heavier sound as the clouds fill with water. It will make you want to stare up at the clouds as you take a moment to reflect on the sheer beauty of the album you just listened to.
The whole album is a dream in itself. Have a break and find a quiet space to properly appreciate the moving storyteller’s handy work.
The Bride is available now.
Image: i-d
We’ve rounded up some of the best new music videos from across the entire musical spectrum, from pop, to R&B, to hip-hop, electro-pop and beyond. Enjoy!
Georgia Mae – Time With You
This was an interestingly filmed video, with some still shots pieced together with raw footage in a kind of intentionally amateur way. Some warm summer vibes for the beginning of winter from this upcoming Australian artist. The video was filmed in brisbane, and the artist had this to say about its concept: “I hope it can relate to a lot of people who have really special memories of spending time with someone important to them.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=em-upload_owner&v=aV0A8oWapzk&app=desktop
Maxwell – Lake By The Ocean
Maxwell has made a welcome return to music, and his first song in seven years now has a visual accompaniment to match. First, we meet a volunteer working at a disadvantaged village, who heads to a bar after work, only to find Maxwell performing. She dances to the smooth tune, before joining Maxwell on a swim – no doubt in a lake by the ocean – quickly showing their affection for one another. The shadows and low lighting do a good job of keeping the mood. it’s good to have him back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsSu0bRZEHM
Kyle Bent – Vibes
Much like the name, the video for the upcoming artist’s new track is all about the good vibes. The bright colours and summer scenes of fun create a warm atmosphere in the mix of clips that go along with the upbeat song. It’s really exciting to see more emerging artists producing this type of cheery, soulful hip-hop infusions, and we’re looking forward to seeing what’s next for Kyle Bent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOzyAzXG4Gc
Bat For Lashes – Sunday Love
Natasha Khan seems to be continuing the wedding theme with this video, just like in God’s House. Here, we meet a man driving on a dark road in a storm, looking as though he had been in a fight. He stops the car and is greeted by Khan wearing a white dress with a veil. Suddenly, he falls into Khan arms dead. While she is visibly upset, she kisses him. He disappears, leaving her staring at the sky. Once again, she found a tragic and exciting way to present her stunning song on video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBfZooPrmfo
Fetty Wap – Wake Up
Once again, Fetty Wap has killed it with another playful clip for Wake Up, a track celebrating getting “Wiz Khalifa high” (aka – very fucking high.) Here, Fetty goes back to school, singing in the hallways, dancing along to the slow beat. The rebelliousness and disinterest in school that so many teenagers possess is portrayed through the integration of the hip-hop lifestyle into the classroom, which is pretty interesting in itself. The combination of the hand-drawn graphics and brightly coloured clips of high school kids chilling out create an interesting take.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbARTyio_0Q&feature=youtu.be
Arthur Beatrice – Since We Were Kids
This is a nice little song with a simple little video. Lead vocalist Ella Girardot sits on a stool in a black and white filtered clip, directed by designer and long time collaborator Kate Moross, while coloured cut-outs surround her. They seem to keep her trapped in a suffocating little box as they crowd in front of her while she dwells on the past. A visually gorgeous clip to accompany the latest single from their new album, Keeping The Peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPt-ZUpkE9w
Clams Casino – Witness ft. Lil B
Clams Casino is back, with new music and a long-awaited new album, 32 Levels, on the way. Now comes new track Witness, which not only features long term collaborator Lil B, but has also been directed by, and stars, the mysterious rapper. While I’m not a fan of his solo work, I’m really digging the track. The video is pretty typical of a slick hip-hop clip, but it’s still a fun watch. We’re really looking forward to this album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHitmmi2VdY
Image: Billboard
With her new album on the way, Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan has given us a music video to match the heartbreaking single In God’s House. The music provides a visual aftermath for the story about a wedding that never happened due to the death of the groom-to-be.
The video depicts Khan walking through a desert as the sun is going down. The wind is swirling around her as she walks up to a grave in the middle of nowhere. She begins to sing with a look of mourning on her face, kneeling in front of the grave. The site grows dark, the neon crucifix on the grave is lit and Khan stumbles away.
She then turns her attention to a black car in the middle of the road. When you listen to the lyrics, you realise this is the car that the woman’s fiancé crashed when he passed away. “What’s this I see? // My baby’s hand on the wheel?// What’s this I see? Fire, Fire.”
Her hauntingly beautiful voice soars as she continues to tell this tragic story in the glow of the car’s headlights. Our hearts break as the video ends.
Earlier in the year, she told us to mark July 1st on our calendars. This has been confirmed as the release date of her long-awaited fourth album The Bride, so save the date!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBjuJbvqm_Y
Image: Rolling Stone
Cultural appropriation. A phrase so laden with meaning in the modern media landscape, it almost feels like it should be a set of capitalised, proper nouns. It’s a term usually relegated to the uncultured masses who sport bindis and Native American headdresses at festivals. Oh, and Iggy Azealia. Unfortunately for Natasha Khan, a.k.a Bat For Lashes, Afghan-American artist Zohra Atash, from the New York band Religious to Damn and Azar Swan, has sullied her good name with accusations of the damning expression.
Khan has teamed up with producer Dan Carey and psychedelic rock band TOY to come together in 2013 for The Bride, a cover of Amir Rassaie’s Aroos Khanom. Carey first discovered it on the 2013 compilation Zendooni: Funk, Psychedelia And Pop From The Iranian Pre-Revolution Generation.
After officially reuniting earlier this year to form Sexwitch, the trio released their debut album of their same name off of Carey’s Speedy Wunderground label last month to a positive response. The album is made up of a collection of covers of 70s folk and psyche songs from countries all over the world like Morocco, Thailand, Iran and even the US.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js-J2qqXDWc&w=560&h=315]
However, Atash has taken up arms against Sexwitch in an essay for The Talkhouse, accusing them of gross misappropriation of Asian culture, saying that it strays into the imperialistic process of ‘othering’ that so many covers inevitably end up doing.
“Through the portal of six cover songs, we enter a Mean-Disney-era dystopia of imperialist, witch-burning othering where gender, cultures and archetypes are whittled down to the lowest common denominator for the sake of slapdash art,” writes Atash.
Despite the fact that Khan has Asian roots herself (she’s half Pakistani), Atash says Khan’s attempts at the Asian style of singing are “over-the-top attempts at heavy-melisma Eastern singing styles such as mawwal and alap.”
Atash also dregs up other insistences in which she believes Khan has committed cultural appropriation, such as the time that, “Natasha Khan homogenized a disenfranchised people by claiming some nebulous affinity with Native Americans and regularly wore feathered war bonnets and played a shaman stick live.”
She continues with by saying, “Asia is not one big country full of primal dancers and/or terrorists. We are living in a world in which tensions between East and West are reaching an apex. So forgive me if I’m not psyched — ha! — that you think the East is your blank canvas.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_bge44OBx0&w=560&h=315]
However, the greatest offence Atash seems to take to the record is a “fuck-up so egregious” that is “calls into question the authenticity of the whole project”. She’s talking about of course the fifth track on the album Ghoroobaa Ghashangan from the Zendooni compilation, which Atash says does not resemble the original by an Iranian singer Ramesh.
Atash, who claims to be a longtime Ramesh fan, says the track is in fact a cover of a lesser known artist Pooneh called Hamishe Tanha. The ignorant mistake caused Atash to literally and involuntarily scream out an angered phrase in Farsi (for which no English translation exists – we can only assume its full of expletives).
Despite the criticism Atash had for the majority of the album, she have did praise for Helelyos and Kassidat el Hakka. There’s still no comment back yet from Sexwitch, there’s a very obvious lesson here for artists: be careful with incorporating other culture into your own.
Fans of Bat for Lashes, also known as Natasha Khan, have been awaiting a new album – or any new music, really – for three years. Her fourth album is apparently on the way, but for now she’s concentrating on a side project called Sexwitch. This collaboration between Khan, TOY and Dan Carey involves the release of a six-track album featuring covers of psych and folk tracks from the 1970’s. The album contains an international twist with all the tracks hailing from different countries, including Iran, Morocco, U.S.A and Thailand.
They performed together for the first time at Green Man Festival over the weekend in Wales. In an intense performance, Khan danced across the stage to the violent music as she sang dark songs of love and lust before falling to her knees, head-banging the ground as the set came to a close.
They released Helelyos a couple of days later. It’s much darker than we’re used to, which is a super exciting move for Khan. The track has a cool sinister tone, powered by a strong amount of percussion and Khan’s hypnotic voice. Her Iranian decent allows her to deeply connect to the powerful lyrics about the beauty of Iranian Women as she chants “my dark girls, my dark girls” who “are not afraid of any dangers.”
Khan revealed some information about her fourth Bat For Lashes album as well:
“Hopefully it’ll be out in spring, yeah. It’s a big undertaking because thematically it’s very linked to a feature [film] that I’m writing at the moment. It has a story and I’m really excited! It’s going to be really good. But because I’ve done this, I feel like I might do a few more sessions and play some of the songs live a bit more, incorporate that into the recording—I haven’t done the final stage of recording yet.”
Sexwitch:
01 Ghoroobaa Ghashangan (Iran)
02 Ha Howa Ha Howa (Morocco)
03 Helelyos (Iran)
04 Kassidat El Hakka (Morocco)
05 War In Peace (U.S.A)
06 Lam Plearn Kiew Bao (Thailand)
Sexwitch will be released on September 25th.
The inevitable teaser trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 has just come out and we are as stoked as any Hunger Games fans to see what the final installation has in store for us.
The eternal struggle between Katniss and President Snow continues in the finale of the epic film series, which features an all ensemble cast of actors like Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore, Liam Hemsworth and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. This last instalment of the franchise will also feature Game of Thrones actress Gwendoline Christie, who will appear as Commander Lyme.
But just as good as the film and franchise itself is the epic and custom-made soundtracks that the film series has spawned over its run, including the likes of Taylor Swift, Arcade Fire, Maroon 5, Coldplay, Sia, Phantogram, Charli XCX, Bat for Lashes and CHVRCHES.
Mockingjay – Part 1 earned praise for its especially excellent soundtrack – one curated by non other than Lorde herself, whose hit Yellow Flicker Beat peaked at 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The New Zealander helped to assemble an all-star collection of singers to help create the soundtrack.
Even Jennifer Lawrence’s surprise hit The Hanging Tree (as sung by Katniss in the film) was added to the extended version of the soundtrack. Hell, even Kanye West got on board, remixing (or reworking) Lorde’s song into a track called Flicker.
Let’s hope the soundtrack for Mockingjay Part 2 will be just as star-studded as the last!
Check out the trailer here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmYNkasYthg&w=560&h=315]
The release date for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is November 19.
It’s been three years since her last album, but Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan has been hard at work with various projects. Here’s her latest one.
Her beautiful vocals are used on a collaboration with violinist John Metcalfe for his new album The Appearance Of Colour. Melcalfe has previously composed music for a number of artists, including Blur and Morrissey, and was a member of post-punk band The Durutti Column.
Just Let Go consists of a slow instrumental introduction with a simple piano and weeping violin. Khan’s vocals are auto-tuned, but still haunting as usual. Suddenly, there is an orchestral explosion which invites a deconstructed hip hop beat. Khan proves to be the perfect addition to the track as she harmonises with Metcalfe’s melody.
If you like what you hear, The Appearance Of Colour will be out on June 8th via Real World.