New York, NY (Top40 Charts) London-based musician and multi-disciplinary artist Natasha Khan - aka
Bat For Lashes - today releases her sixth studio album 'The
Dream Of Delphi', via acclaimed label Mercury KX/Universal Music.
In new album 'The
Dream of Delphi' we meet the Motherwitch: the name Khan gives to the armour she puts on when she is exploring the depths and peaks of herself in her new capacity as a parent and protector. Moments of quiet domesticity sit amongst flashes of existential wonder in these ten spiralling compositions. Lyrics about the break-up of Natasha's relationship with Delphi's father interweave with the place of the mother in the never-ending cycle of life, death and rebirth. Ideas and sounds both ancient and modern also mesh mesmerisingly together, pianos, bass flutes and harps blending with organs, mellotrons and the whirling sound patterns of synthesisers, inspired by her love of female and trans artists like
Delia Derbyshire, Constance Demby and Beverly
Glenn Copeland, and her long standing interests in ambient and orchestral film soundtracks.
While Natasha Khan has always created visual stories and films for her albums, this new era sees her pushing the creative further than ever with the ambitious release of a counterpart album film, expanding on the official music videos into an emotive, visceral exploration of the album. Produced in collaboration with creative director and choreographer
Alexandra Green and directed by Freddie Leyden, the film acts as a visual score and accompaniment to the album, punctuated and anchored by the official music videos from the album's singles.
'The
Dream of Delphi - A New Transmission' is a visual narrative that accompanies the calling, the creating and birthing of a child, with an exploration of both the human rawness that surrounds that experience and the mythical and universal realisations that have occurred for Natasha during her journey of motherhood. The dance pieces include partner work that explores the pressures, bonding, and tenderness that occurs when lovers become parents, and the dances with the two women hint at Natasha's relationship with the midwives, the best friends and the sisterhood she felt she so badly needed around the birth of her daughter. The choreography - based on the simple and mundane actions of everyday life - highlights the stark beauty within simplicity and mundanity, by weaving together raw emotions into a series of dance theatre moments that are emblematic of the way that a relationship changes, shifts and also breaks down; movements developed by Khan as part of her all-new live show, first teased at Meltdown Festival last summer.
After teasing new music and live staging last year as part of the
Christine & The Queens curated Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre,
Bat For Lashes will take to the stage again this summer for her first run of headline concerts for five years with a highly conceptual show that combines movement and elements of performance art alongside her virtuosic vocal performance and live band.
Last year
Bat For Lashes released 'Motherwitch', a hand-illustrated reimagining of
Tarot using multiple original female archetypes, visual symbols and an abstract spiritualist painters' colour palette across 40 cards to provide a storyteller's guide into the mysteries and beauty of our own internal landscapes. The Motherwitch oracle deck lands somewhere between Brian Eno and
Peter Schmidt's 'Oblique Strategies' and the Wild Unknown
Tarot Deck, while the deck also stands alone as a bespoke art object in and of itself. The 40 cards were entirely designed and conceived by Khan, creating an oracle deck for use as a tool for the creative process and also as a conduit to the subconscious realms. Produced in collaboration with East London wellness brand She's Lost Control, the deck is available now.
'The
Dream of Delphi' marks a stark new chapter in the already varied, and critically acclaimed story of Bat For Lashes. Welcome to 'The Motherwitch's' domain.
The
Dream Of Delphi Tracklist:
1. The
Dream Of Delphi
2. Christmas Day
3. Letter To My Daughter
4. At Your Feet
5. The Midwives Have Left
6. Home (Single Version)
7. Breaking Up
8. Delphi Dancing
9. Her First Morning
10. Waking Up
11. The
Dream of Delphi (Bonus Extended
Strings Version)
Bat For Lashes Tour Dates:
12-Jun O2 Academy 2, Oxford UK [SOLD OUT]
18-Jun Town Hall, Birmingham, UK
19-Jun Beacon, Bristol, UK
24-Jun Barbican, London, UK [SOLD OUT]
25-Jun Bexhill De La Warr Pavillion, UK
27-Jun Aviva Studios, Manchester, UK
6-Jul Beauregard Festival, France
29-Jun Siren's Call Festival, Luxembourg
18-Jul Colours of Ostrava, Czech Republic
23-Aug Edinburgh International Festival, UK
Natasha Khan is primarily a musician, singer and songwriter and has been a professional recording artist under the moniker "Bat For Lashes" for the past 17 years. She has recently returned back to the UK after 6 years in California with her 3 year old daughter Delphi. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working not only in music, but also across practices in the visual arts and film. Khan has recorded six studio albums, as well as soundtracks for film, podcasts and television over the course of her career. The singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist and director has been praised by critics and audiences worldwide, scoring 5 top 15 UK albums and playing live shows at Coachella, Glastonbury, Latitude and Laneway amongst others. Her musical works have been included in soundtracks for 'The Twilight Saga', 'The Hunger Games' and campaigns for Thierry Mugler, Chanel, Gucci and Miu Miu. Khan's songs have been described as distinctively haunting, darkly fantastical and ripe with magic realism, which has garnered three Mercury Prize nominations, three BRIT Awards nominations and two Ivor Novello wins, for Song of the Year and Best
Soundtrack in 2019. She has co-directed a majority of her 20 plus music videos, and premiered a short film she wrote and directed at TriBeCa film festival in 2016, all the while keeping up with her visual art practice.
