The long-awaited sixth studio album from Bat For Lashes, aka Natasha Khan, sees her take on yet another alter ego, the Motherwitch. The titular muse, Delphi, is Khan’s daughter; her birth a few years ago, with all of the complex emotions that entails, looms large here.
There’s enough to sate fans of earlier, more introspective tracks like Fur And Gold ‘s ‘Prescilla’ and Two Suns’ ‘Moon and Moon’ with tracks like the ethereal choral ‘The Midwives Have Left’, and ‘At Your Feet’, a slow-burning piano waltz – but these are one side of the coin.
‘Christmas Day’ is strange and woozy, with a synth that suggests the overwhelm and exhaustion of early morning feeds; whereas chattering synth ostinatos provide the backdrop on the more poppy and direct ‘Letter To My Daughter’, emulating the babbling of a baby’s first words.
It could have run the risk of trite sentimentality but it never feels too obvious or commercial, instead opting for music that’s just the right side of experimental, while feeling intimate.
It’s her most personal album yet; the most exposed she’s ever been as an artist, and all the better for it.
There are even a couple of curveballs thrown in. ‘Breaking Up’ runs with a 1980s saxophone sound, before dissolving into something that the late Japanese art pop pioneer Ryuichi Sakamoto might have scored in his film soundtrack days. And the title track teases the start of the riff from her worldwide hit ‘Daniel’, before instead dipping a toe into a Steve Reich-inspired kind of minimalism.
Her voice, too, has never been better, whether soft or soaring.The umbilical cord may have been severed, but these songs have an eternal quality.
The Dream of Delphi is out now via Mercury KX. Buy here.
