The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • Tumblr

  • RSS

CultureMusicLive music

Bat for Lashes’s dreamy vocals and mystical presence light up EartH

Bat for Lashes’s dreamy vocals and mystical presence light up EartH | Live review
28 November 2019
Jessica Wall
Jessica Wall
Avatar
Jessica Wall
28 November 2019

Music review

Jessica Wall

Bat for Lashes at EartH

★★★★★

Highlights

Feel for You, Jasmine, I Drove All Night

Links

Twitter Facebook Instagram Soundcloud Website

Environmental Arts Hackney, formerly the Savoy Cinema, built in 1936, is slightly derelict in a chic and bohemian way. It suits the aesthetic of Bat For Lashes (aka Natasha Khan) perfectly. 

Her fifth album, The Lost Girls, is the soundtrack to an imagined film about a gang of girl vampires marauding through the California desert, led by Nikki Pink. Khan loves a concept album and this is her first since leaving major label EMI and moving to LA. It shows (or perhaps sounds). Full of sweeping synths, it creates a dreamlike world all of its own, something Khan excels at. Standout new tracks Feel For You and Jasmine are amped up here; Khan emerges from the lights, her voice as delicate and ethereal as her lace and tulle dress. She displays her influences with a cover of Don Henley’s Boys of Summer. Every song heard through the prism of her voice becomes truly special. 

The stage is set with lamps that glow brighter as songs reach their climax, which is effective. Khan alternates between keyboard and guitar, with just another keyboard player for backup. She is a warm and engaging presence, chatting between songs about her obsession with alien abduction and the concept of lost time before the spooky Close Encounters. Before writing Land’s End, she met a Professor of Mythology (“It gets weirder,” she says as the audience chuckles) who, dressed in a black cape and top hat, led her across Dartmoor to pay tribute to a rowan tree and pass it into a spectral landscape. Although now in California, Khan is “marinated” in the misty, folkloric English countryside. Though her latest album is more poppy and 80s-inspired, there is a strong folk feel to her songwriting. Old favourites Daniel and Laura go down well with the audience and sound as good as ever.  

As an encore, she plays Moon and Moon (“I’ll just let my fingers do what they want. It’s ok, I trust them,” she says charmingly). This is followed by a cover of Kate Bush’s This Woman’s Work and Roy Orbison’s I Drove All Night. The former fully shows off her magical soprano and is mesmerising and moving: one wants to catch her voice in a bottle and keep it always. It is apposite also; she is the millenial’s Kate Bush, if Kate Bush had driven through the arid desert all night.  

Though in a mid-sized venue, Khan makes the show feel intimate, languishing sensually in her otherworldliness and making each audience member feel as though she is talking to and playing just for them. A magical evening.

★★★★★

Jessica Wall
Photo: Luke Hannaford

For further information and future events visit Bat for Lashes’s website here.

Watch the video for Kids in the Dark here:

Related Itemsfeaturedlive musicreview

More in Live music

Andrew Combs at the Lexington

★★★★★
Marissa Khaos
Read More

White Lies return to Brixton Academy in a haze of nostalgia

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

Rosalia brings pure, unadulterated energy to Brixton Academy

★★★★★
Sarah Bradbury
Read More

Sigrid charms audiences with exuberance and stunning vocals at Hammersmith Apollo

★★★★★
Ezelle Alblas
Read More

Dermot Kennedy captivates with colossal vocals at Hammersmith Apollo

★★★★★
Bev Lung
Read More

Primal Scream at the Forum

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

Frank Turner plays intimate and heartfelt gig at Alexandra Palace

★★★★★
The editorial unit
Read More

Liam Gallagher smashes his way into new heights at the O2 Arena

★★★★★
Grace Walsh
Read More

Alec Benjamin charms his young audience with sweet storytelling at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire

★★★★★
Ezelle Alblas
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Music review

Jessica Wall

Bat for Lashes at EartH

★★★★★

Highlights

Feel for You, Jasmine, I Drove All Night

Links

Twitter Facebook Instagram Soundcloud Website

Tickets

Theatre tickets

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Secret Cinema Presents Stranger Things: An uncanny, immersive delight
    Cinema
  • Three Sisters at the National Theatre
    Theatre
  • Five of the best Christmas afternoon teas in London
    Food & Drinks
  • IT London in Mayfair: Authentic and refined Italian dishes in a swanky restaurant
    ★★★★★
    Food & Drinks
  • The Duchess of Malfi at Almeida Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • “Sting always makes me want to choreograph”: An interview with ZooNation director Kate Prince
    Theatre
  • A Kind of People at the Royal Court Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • IT London in Mayfair: Authentic and refined Italian dishes in a swanky restaurant
    ★★★★★
    Food & Drinks
  • Thriller Live at Lyric Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • IT London in Mayfair: Authentic and refined Italian dishes in a swanky restaurant
    ★★★★★
    Food & Drinks
  • The Snow Queen at Park Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Three Sisters at the National Theatre
    Theatre
  • A Taste of Honey at Trafalgar Studios
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2018 FL Media Ltd

The Lumineers play fan favourites and reveal new directions at the O2 Arena
The Greatest Play in the History of the World at Trafalgar Studios | Theatre review