Bat For Lashes

Two Suns

(Astralwerks)

Record Review by Joe Cortez

I'm not sure when it started or why it continues but for the longest time I've often found myself gravitating towards the work of female musicians. Genres or styles are less appealing to me than the mood that seems to be struck when listening to the music of the fairer sex. Often it's more about a feeling than anything truly palpable that is added to the music, I can just as easily imagine a Juliana Hatfield or Kim Gordon tackling a Beatles tune with results that probably wouldn't greatly alter my understanding or appreciation of "Doctor Robert.". But rare is the case and special the occasion when I can almost assuredly say while listening to a song or album, here is a work that could only be produced by a woman.

Fur and Gold, the first album released under Natasha Khan's Bat for Lashes pseudonym, was a notable release that eschewed the typical girl rock sound flooding the airwaves at the time of its release in aught-six and produced several key tracks that left an indelible impression on me, among them "What's a Girl To Do?" "Sarah" and a haunting cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire." It was an impressive if hollow achievement that deserved recognition for its originality but in no way prepared me for what would be Khan's next album.

With Two Suns, Khan has successfully transitioned from emerging talent to bona fide artist. Here is an album that is through and through the work of its creator. Everything about Two Suns is filtered through the lens of Khan with the help of her collaborators. There is a continuation of the sound first heard of Fur and Gold that feels more like a natural progression than casual retread. Most interesting is Khan's use of canonical staples such as the lonely piano ballad ("Moon and Moon," "Traveling Woman") and synth-driven up-tempo pop song ("Daniel," "Pearl's Dream") to amazing effect that actually serves to carry forth ideas rather than just the wistful pinning or derivative romantic entanglements that most of her contemporaries seem stuck on.

Obvious influences such as Kate Bush and Tori Amos are almost obligatory in their mentioning but by no means detract from the sound present on this disc. If one such as Khan can draw comparison to a Kate Bush then she is indeed doing something right but I find most of the parallels between the two to be more ideological than aesthetic. Both are clearly following their own muse with little regard to trends or tastes. It's an instinct that served Bush well throughout the seventies and eighties and no doubt serves Khan on Two Suns.

Not content to merely usurp expectations with musical experimentation, Two Suns finds Khan in peak lyric-writting form. The album is rich with imagery and subtext with perhaps the most prevalent themes in the album dealing with the nature of duality and existence. Khan even went so far as to create a separate identity for herself named Pearl. Heady stuff for a pop album but it's all presented in such a compelling package that I couldn't wait to make sense of it all, not that I had to. Anything of worth, anything that lasts can be enjoyed on multiple layers, as is the case with Khan's latest. Individual songs can be readily enjoyed on their own merits but taken as a whole a fully realized portrait forms in the listener's mind of a woman in tune with her own creative sense of the cosmos and her own being.

I will make no bones about it: "Two Suns" is a great, unique album that could only have sprung from the mind of a woman so clearly talented as Khan. It is a true experience that says something to me of what it is to be a woman in the same way "Wish You Were Here" knows what it means to miss a friend.