London-based musician and multidisciplinary artist Natasha Khan, also known as Bat For Lashes, today announces her sixth studio album, 'The Dream Of Delphi', due out on May 31. The release will be Bat For Lashes' first since she signed a new deal with acclaimed label Mercury KX, heralding a new era for the three-time Brit Award and Mercury Prize nominee.
Named after her daughter Delphi, born in California during the closed summer of 2020, 'The Dream of Delphi' finds Khan reflecting on early motherhood on her most personal album to date.
Also announced today is their first run of UK headline shows in five years, including a landmark date at The Barbican on June 24. Tickets go on sale March 1 and artist pre-sales starting February 28; register here To access.
The new single is accompanied by a stunning video filmed earlier this winter in the English countryside, produced in collaboration with creative director and choreographer Alexandra Green and directed by Freddie Leyden. The official video will form the first chapter of a yet-to-be-announced full-length album film, and more information will be revealed soon.
Part pagan invocation, part celestial synth epic, new single and album opener 'The Dream of Delphi' marks a stunning return and true-to-form reinvention for Khan. Feeling ancient and astral but at the same time new and exciting. The album invites the listener on a journey of devotional love songs about spirituality, ancestry and folklore, but also the worldly, selfless and tender aspects of parenting that all mothers can give. testimony.
Speaking on the track, Natasha adds: “This is the album manifesto. It's like casting a spell. It is the spell, the manifestation, the extraction of Delphi from the ether. This is me calling to his soul. It's about ascending to the stars and descending to the underworld simultaneously, how deep celestial and guttural sounds can come together, how that reflects the journey I took. It's about what happens when you stretch physically, mentally, and even vaginally. I think becoming a mother has also honored me. It has made me feel more vulnerable than ever before. But I feel more human, more embodied. I can't escape life doing things as beautiful as I did. But now there is a kind of beauty in my mortality.”
“I thought motherhood would take me away from my art, but it opened up this huge world for me.” Natasha Khan continues, six albums into a career of vivid creative shifts, examining female archetypes in conceptually rich and musically rewarding explorations, but none of them as personal, raw or vulnerably powerful an experience as 'The Dream Of Delphi'.
Constantly looking for untapped places in herself to work, Khan suddenly found an extra, fleshy, fertile and raw layer after giving birth to her daughter in the summer of 2020 during the Covid lockdown, taking advantage of moments of pregnancy and early motherhood to improvise and write, hugging. gut instinct and emotional directness, and ultimately self-produces what might be her boldest revival yet. 'The Dream of Delphi' is her most intuitive and deeply felt album, an ambitious and tender set of abstract, almost spiritual songs: Natasha calls them her “song poems” – along with haunting instrumentals that express the ineffable.
In 'The Delphi Dream' we meet the Witch Mother: the name Khan gives to the armor she dons as she explores the depths and heights of herself in her new capacity as mother and protector. “I have turned the mother in me into this more powerful and elevated archetype of the aspects of myself that are a mother. [The Motherwitch] “It helps me put something so vulnerable and personal out into the world. I felt like I couldn't just do it as Natasha, because it's so, so deep.”
Moments of quiet domesticity lie among flashes of existential wonder in these ten spiral compositions. Lyrics about the breakdown of Natasha's relationship with Delphi's father are intertwined with the mother's place in the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth. Ideas and sounds, both ancient and modern, also intertwine in fascinating ways: pianos, bass flutes and harps mingle with organs, mellotrons and the swirling sound patterns of synthesizers, inspired by his love of female and trans artists like Delia Derbyshire , Constance Demby and Beverly Glenn Copeland. and her long-standing interests in ambient and orchestral film scores.
After presenting new music and live performances last year as part of the Meltdown Festival curated by Christine & The Queens at the Southbank Centre, Bat For Lashes will take to the stage again this summer for their first series of headline concerts in five years with a focus highly conceptual. show that combines movement and elements of performance art along with his virtuoso vocal performance and live band.
Last year, Bat For Lashes released 'Motherwitch', a hand-illustrated reimagining of the Tarot that uses multiple original female archetypes, visual symbols and an abstract spiritualist painters' color palette across 40 cards to provide a storyteller's guide to the mysteries. and the beauty of our own world. internal landscapes. The Motherwitch Oracle Deck lands somewhere between Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's 'Oblique Strategies' and the Wild Unknown Tarot deck, while the deck also stands on its own as a bespoke art object in itself . The 40 cards were designed and conceived entirely by Khan, creating an oracle deck to use as a tool for the creative process and also as a conduit to the subconscious realms.
'Delphi's Dream' marks a new chapter in the already varied and acclaimed history of Bat For Lashes. Welcome to the domain of 'The Witch Mother'.
Delphi's Dream song list:
1. The dream of Delphi
2. Christmas day
3. Letter to my daughter
4. At your feet
5. The midwives are gone
6. Home
7. Breaking up
8. Delphi Dance
9. His first morning
10. Wake up
11. The Delphian Dream (additional version with extended strings)
Bat For Lashes Tour Dates:
June 12 O2 Academy 2, Oxford, UK
June 18 Town Hall, Birmingham, United Kingdom
June 19 Beacon, Bristol, UK
June 24 Barbican, London, United Kingdom
June 25 Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion, United Kingdom
June 27 Aviva Studios, Manchester, UK
July 6 Beauregard Festival, France
June 29 Siren Song Festival, Luxembourg
July 18 Colors of Ostrava, Czech Republic
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