Natasha Khan has always been different. As Bat for Lashes, she emerged on the UK music scene in 2006, all horses, head-dresses and hippie accessories, at a time when skinny jeans, dirty dance floors and indie braggadocio were very muchde rigueur. Hers was an art-pop sound full of mystery and mysticism, with harpsichords, lutes and musical saws accompanying her tales of wizards, bats and black snow. Listen to her debut, the Mercury Prize-nominated Fur and Gold, and it’s easy to recall her swirling around onstage in a floaty pagan dress.
These days, though, conceptual electronic pop is her currency. On 2016’s The Bride, she told the story of a woman whose fiancé dies on his way to their wedding. It was bold and brilliant, a dreamlike meditation on love and loss summoned by Khan’s spectral falsetto. The new record – her first since leaving EMI and moving to LA – is even better.
Musically, Lost Girls couldn’t be more Eighties if it were playing a Commodore 64 while eating Angel Delight. Like Stranger Things, everything about it is unashamedly nostalgic: the power drums, the moody atmospherics, the arpeggiated synths. Close your eyes and you can practically see Jason Patric on the Santa Cruz boardwalk in The Lost Boys.
That’s the intention, of course. Influenced by the movie soundtracks of Khan’s childhood, fromET to The Goonies, Lost Girls is the hypothetical soundtrack to a vampire film she one day hopes will be released. The main character is Nikki Pink, a teenager who falls in love while being pursued by a bike-riding, blood-sucking girl gang. “Lying next to you / We could be on the moon,” Khan sings on gauzy opener “Kids in the Dark”, a song that’s allowed to run and breathe. On “Feel for You”, over polyrhythmic beats, she yearningly declares “I love you” in a repeated refrain, while “Jasmine”, inspired by her childhood trips to Pakistan, will remind you of Depeche Mode. Elsewhere, “Desert Man” is a pure icy synth joy, bolstered by reverb-drenched drums and gorgeous harmonies.
Given our current preoccupation with the Eighties, you could argue that Lost Girls is hardly breaking new ground – and yes, nostalgia is a fairly generic formula. But listened to as a whole, the album positively thrums with sonic invention, managing to feel both fresh and full of intrigue. Khan once again demonstrates a knack for uncanny storytelling. Three of her past albums have been nominated for Mercurys; expect this to make it four.
