Bat For Lashes "Fur And Gold" (Echo Records, 2006)

Artist: Bat For Lashes
Album: "Fur And Gold"
Release Date: 11 September 2006
Label: Echo Records
Genre: Indie-Electronic, Folktronica, Freak-Folk, Singer-Songwriter
Mood: Gloomy, Bittersweet, Austere, Intimate
Reminds Of: Cat Power, Bjork, Pj Harvey, Kate Bush
What People Think: FilterMagazine, LATimes, SlantMagazine
Definitely Worth Buying: Play, Amazon

Tracklist
1. Horse And I
2. Trophy
3. Tahiti
4. What's A Girl To Do
5. Sad Eyes
6. Wizard
7. Prescilla
8. Bat's Mouth
9. Seal Jubilee
10. Sarah
11. I Saw A Light

Bat For Lashes, the musical alter-ego of one Natasha Khan, has attracted much (inevitable) comparison to Björk and Kate Bush, and to some extent this holds water. There’s the same maverick female singer-songwriter thing going on, and Bat For Lashes has the same love of wrapping raw emotion in surprising sounds and arrangements so that the impact jumps out at you from several different angles at once. However, Fur and Gold is far from an influence-hugging act of mimicry: the sound couldn’t possibly be stolen goods when it’s so exactly sculpted to fit Khan’s voice. Her vocal, whether in soft/atmospheric or bold and striking mode, always fits perfectly into the fabric of the music, adding to and becoming part of the atmosphere rather than superimposing itself over it. Around and between the vocals, seemingly delicate instrumentation is woven together in such a way as to lend it a complex, layered strength. Fur and Gold doesn’t so much use hooks as suggest them: whispering hints of melody, shared out between the violin, harpsichord and oddly mechanical sounding handclaps, provide enough of a tune to let the song worm its way firmly into your mind without ever overwhelming the atmospheric complexity of the whole. And that coherent atmosphere is the root of Fur and Gold’s power. By welding the mysticism, dream imagery and fairytale* quality of the lyrical content to the ethereal yet powerful music, an emotional rawness is balanced by a sense of distance and mystery which persists through repeated listens without feeling tired or spent. Although occasional slips into a more conventional or less complex sound sometimes loosen the album’s grip on the listener, it’s never long before the spell re-establishes itself. An entrancing, wonderfully surprising record which manages to feel both refreshing new and strangely timeless.

(source: DrownedInSound)

“Fur and Gold announces Natasha Khan's Bat For Lashes as a talent impossible to ignore and beguiling to behold, an album that, time and again, plucks one away from the mundane and offers a bewitching alternative galaxy of delights.” [MUSICOHM.COM]

“Bat For Lashes' debut, Fur And Gold, is an album that delivers the listener from any form of humdrum existence into a deeper realm of dream and dementia.” [HOT PRESS]

“Fur and Gold is not the greatest album of the 2007, but it’s certainly the most breathtaking.” [POP MATTERS]

“But we do the dishes, we make the bread, we are powdered ashes in the light of the beauty…”