With five studio albums and well over a decade of producing hit music, Bat for Lashes AKA Natasha Khan earned a break. She paused her recent series of live streams to give birth to her first child – a daughter born at the end of July 2020.
Khan has won multiple awards for her music, including the Antville Music Video Award, ASCAP Award, UK Asian Music Award, and two Ivor Novello Awards – one for her song Daniel and one for her work on the soundtrack of the movie Requiem.
“The best stories to me are ones that use fantasy to heighten reality and have an aspect of escapism to them,” Khan tells Vogue, explaining why her music has so many religious and mythological references, “Sometimes we just want to be elevated into a realm that’s almost religious so that we can access deeper parts of ourselves.”
Natasha Khan explores the feminine gothic in 80s pop style and musicbox tunes
Khan uses her music to tell a story. In fact, she often creates distinct alter egos for each album. Her music, in particular her last album, often feature serious subject material with gothic themes.
“I think these myths and archetypes keep resurrecting in society when things get really dark,” Khan tells Vogue regarding the recent resurgence of the gothic. “… It’s a cathartic way for us all to explore those dark shadows… That’s all part of the healing of society and how we all intricately connect to each other.”
Khan also uses her persona onstage to reflect the moods of her music. In fact, she often dresses in an extravagantly avant-garde manner for her concerts. She has released five albums, and draws on the 1980s and the idea of the “dark aspects of the feminine” for her latest last album Lost Girls.
Outside of her career as Bat for Lashes, Khan also collaborated with English rock band Toy, a collaboration dubbed Sexwitch. The project included six covers of international psychedelic music recorded in one session with translated lyrics. Khan described the creative process as “channeling some sort of ancestral feelings about witches” and, given the often sensual nature of the lyrics, the name of the project was born. The covers include two Iranian songs, one Moroccan song, one Thai song, and one American.
- Ghoroobaa Ghashangan by Sexwitch – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDCQa39Qyvc&ab_channel=Sexwitch-Topic
- The Hunger by Bat for Lashes
- In God’s House by Bat for Lashes
Natasha Khan and Sam Watkins welcome new baby girl
Born in London, Khan comes from an English-Pakistani family. Her father, Rahmatallah Khan, is a well-known squash player and coach. Through him, she is related to multiple notable squash players, as well as actress Sasha Agha.
Khan told Pitchfork that when she was 18, her father attempted to arrange a marriage for her. “It happened to my family members and Pakistani cousins, and I remember thinking it was very scary,” Khan recalls. “For me, living in England, that was a weird thing to consider… It was funny that my dad had that in mind for me since he married an English woman that he met and fell in love with.”
Khan did, however, eventually make public her relationship with Australian actor Sam Watkins.
Watkins even took a feature role in Khan’s music video Kids in the Dark.
Although they keep their relationship fairly private, Khan announced the birth of their young daughter this July, posting photos of the newborn on Instagram.
In 2016, Khan told Huck Mag that her father’s departure when she was 11 was the root of much troubling behavior in her teen years, and insecurities regarding ever having children.
“You think, ‘oh yeah, I’d like to have kids by that point and I’m sure I will’ or whatever,” she said “But then if you haven’t, then it’s visceral. It’s like a physical pain of yearning to nurture something.”
Taking her time out of the limelight during quarantine
In May, Khan held a livesteam concert. She also released a live EP in February right before lockdown called The Boys of Summer, which includes three of her own songs and a cover of the eponymous 1984 Don Henley song.
However, she has taken a well-earned pause from the public eye in order to have her first child.
In the meantime, check out the rest of Khan’s discography on Spotify.
