Bat for Lashes

Natasha Khan (born 25 October 1979), known professionally as Bat for Lashes, is an English singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist.

After returning to the UK, Khan settled in Brighton in 2000 to study music and visual arts at the University of Brighton, where she produced sound installations, animations, and performances influenced by artists including Steve Reich and Susan Hiller.

After finishing her degree, Khan completed an NVQ in play work and childcare, and worked as a nursery school teacher, dedicating her spare time to developing songs, recording demos, and gigging in Brighton.

She has said the name Bat for Lashes "doesn't really mean anything [...] It conjured up Halloween-y images, and it sounded metal and feminine.”

She has released six studio albums: Fur and Gold (2006), Two Suns (2009), The Haunted Man (2012), The Bride (2016), Lost Girls (2019), and The Dream of Delphi (2024).

She has received three Mercury Prize nominations.

Khan is also the vocalist for Sexwitch, a collaboration with the rock band Toy and producer Dan Carey.

Khan was born to an English mother and a Pakistani father, squash player Rehmat Khan.

A member of the Khan family, she is the granddaughter of squash player Nasrullah Khan, the niece of squash players Jahangir Khan and Torsam Khan, the stepdaughter of singer and actress Salma Agha, and the half-sister of actress Sasha Agha.

The family moved to Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, when Khan was five years old.

She attended many of her family's squash matches, which she felt inspired her creativity: "The roar of the crowd is intense; it is ceremonial, ritualistic, I feel like the banner got passed to me but I carried it on in a creative way. It is a similar thing, the need to thrive on heightened communal experience."

After her father left the family when Khan was eleven, she taught herself to play the piano, which became "a channel to express things, to get them out".

Khan was subject to racial abuse during secondary school due to her Pakistani heritage.

She played truant and was suspended after swearing and throwing a chair at a teacher.

She told The Daily Telegraph: "I was an outsider at school. When I came back from being suspended they had told the small group of friends that I did have there that they weren't allowed to talk to me because I was a really bad influence. Then it got quite lonely."

After completing her GCSEs and A-Levels, Khan took a job in a card-packing factory where she would work while listening to songs she had made.

She said: "My internal imaginary life was really fruitful at that time...All day long just listening and dreaming, while counting the cards to be packed."

With money saved from the job, she embarked on a three-month road trip through the United States and Mexico.

Khan's debut single, "The Wizard", was released digitally through Drowned in Sound records and on 7" vinyl through Khan's own imprint, She Bear Records. In 2006, she signed to Echo, a record label owned by independent publisher Chrysalis Music that acted as an incubator for artists before "upstreaming" them to major labels. Echo released her debut album, Fur and Gold, in September 2006. In 2007, Bat for Lashes and Echo signed an international licensing deal with Parlophone Records, which re-released Fur and Gold the same year. A limited vinyl version was released by Los Angeles indie label Manimal Vinyl in May 2007. Fur and Gold reached number forty-eight on the UK Albums Chart and has since been certified gold by the BPI for sales exceeding 100,000 copies. In 2007, Khan appeared at the Glastonbury Festival and toured the United States.

Fur and Gold received critical acclaim, including a five-star review from The Guardian.

It was shortlisted for the 2007 Mercury Prize, losing out to Klaxons' Myths of the Near Future, despite being a favourite of British media to win the award.

Also in 2007, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) bestowed their Vanguard Award on her and chose her to perform at their "ASCAP Presents..."

showcase at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

In 2008, Khan was nominated for British Breakthrough Act and British Female Solo Artist at the Brit Awards.

Radiohead's 2008 tour featured several shows with Bat for Lashes as their opening act.

Her version of the Cure's "A Forest" appeared on a charity album called Perfect as Cats on Manimal Vinyl in late 2008.

Khan's second album, Two Suns, was released in April 2009 and produced by Khan and David Kosten.

In preparation for the album, Khan journeyed to Joshua Tree Desert in California to gain inspiration, before returning to New York and London to write and record the finished material for release.

A concept album, Two Suns focuses on Khan's desert-born alter ego Pearl, whose personality she adopted while staying in New York to gain a better understanding of the character.

She revealed to the BBC's Newsbeat, "I really just did it as an experiment of dressing up myself with quite garish extreme feminine make-up. I wanted to photograph myself in that situation and just see what it made me feel."

Khan believed that living in Brooklyn when bands such as TV on the Radio, MGMT, and Gang Gang Dance were emerging on the music scene had an influence on the album's musical style.

In an interview with MTV, she said, "I experienced that whole thing coming out, in terms of beats and like going out dancing and checking out all this new music, it was really inspiring."

During the album's production, she also collaborated with Brooklyn band Yeasayer for the bass and beat programming.

In June 2009, Bat for Lashes first appeared on the cover of The Fader, in its 60th issue.

Two Suns debuted at number five on the UK Albums Chart, and has been certified gold by the BPI for sales of 100,000 copies.

The first single from the album, "Daniel", became Khan's first hit, peaking at number thirty-six on the UK Singles Chart; it later won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song and was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Breakthrough Video of the Year.

The following singles were "Pearl's Dream" and a double A-side of "Sleep Alone" and "Moon and Moon", the latter of which was featured in a high-profile advertising campaign for children's charity Barnardo's in late 2009.

Critical response to the album was mostly favourable, generating a score of 77 on the review aggregator Metacritic.

In their review for Two Suns, NME awarded it 8 out of 10, describing the album as "epic in scope and ambition and requires a similarly epic patience to unravel its charms."

Rolling Stone also rated it favourably, stating "Khan proves she's a powerhouse under her billowy sleeves. She could be the next Kate Bush."