Bat For Lashes is the recording name of Natasha Khan, a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist from Wembley, United Kingdom. Born in 1979, she later studies music and visual arts at Brighton University and develops an approach to songwriting that draws on experimental multimedia, installation, animation and performance work. She also works as a nursery school teacher before beginning to write the material that becomes her debut.

Career

Bat For Lashes begins with the single The Wizard in 2006, first issued on Khan’s own She Bear label and then through Drowned In Sound. Her debut album, Fur and Gold, follows later in 2006 on Echo, before a small Manimal Vinyl pressing leads to a move to Parlophone. In 2007 she receives an ASCAP Vanguard Award and is selected to open ASCAP Presents… at SXSW in Austin. She also appears at Glastonbury in 2007.

In 2007, an EP titled What’s a Girl to Do? is released from sessions for Fur and Gold, and her Mercury Prize nomination is announced that same year. In 2008 she is nominated for two Brit Awards: Best British Breakthrough Act and Best British Female. During this period she tours with Radiohead across Europe, beginning in Dublin, and her video for What’s a Girl to Do? helps bring her wider attention.

Albums and releases

Her second album, Two Suns, is released in 2009 on Echo and Parlophone. The lead single is Daniel, and the album prompts comparisons with artists and groups such as Stevie Nicks, Dolores O’Riordan and Fleetwood Mac. Khan’s live band for the Two Suns period includes Ben Christophers, Charlotte Hatherley and Sarah Jones. She appears on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge, performing Daniel acoustically and covering Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody. She also makes her first appearance on US broadcast television on The Late Show with David Letterman, performing Daniel, and appears on NPR’s World Cafe with Daniel, Moon and Moon and Prescilla.

Her third studio album, The Haunted Man, is announced in 2012 and is again produced by Faultline, as were Fur and Gold and Two Suns. It becomes her highest-charting US album to that point, reaching number 64. Singles from the album include Laura, All Your Gold, A Wall and Lilies. She later releases The Bride in 2016 and Lost Girls in 2019, both on Echo and Parlophone.

Style and influences

Bat For Lashes is associated with alternative pop, art pop, dream pop, folktronica, indie rock and indietronica, and is also linked with indie, folk and alternative singer-songwriter traditions. Khan’s music is often described in relation to Björk, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, Annie Lennox, Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. She has said that when she writes music, she imagines a visual world of characters, colours and landscapes, and sees music and imagery as closely connected.

Other work and appearances

Khan’s background in visual art shapes her wider practice, and she also designs a limited-edition cover for Fact magazine. In 2008 she contributes a cover of A Forest to Perfect As Cats: A Tribute to the Cure. She begins a North American tour in 2007, interrupted by European festival dates, and in 2008 opens a month of European Radiohead shows. A recording of Fur and Gold sessions made at Joe’s Pub in New York also feeds into the EP release.