Album Review: Bat for Lashes – The Dream of Delphi
2 min read
Well well well!! Natasha Khan returns as Bat for Lashes for her sixth studio album, The Dream of Delphi, after a five year hiatus. The artistic conception for the album, released through Mercury KX label, is (name and all content) centred around, and dedicated to, Khan’s daughter, Delphi (named after the sacred ancient Greek precinct – the seat of Pythia the oracle). Whilst the album is obviously a deeply personal venture, one that Khan hopes Delphi can “hear it when she’s grown and know how much her Mum loved her”, she hoped that the listener hears this album as somewhat of a matriarchal balm, detailing the thoughts and emotions surrounding “one more Babushka doll in a long line of DNA”.
The title track, The Dream of Delphi begins the album with an ethereal, yet electronic feel, with a repeating seven tones of a Stylophone giving a hypnotic, trance-like quality to the song. Christmas Day floats in next, with Natasha talking of her unborn child “you’re a gift that I’ll come to give away, in time”, whilst the slow piano chords of Letter To My Daughter are supported by some fantastic seemingly (but obviously not) random electronic synth notes hitting the track like raindrops, in this love letter to Delphi. At Your Feet is almost a piano lullaby, with Natasha adding otherworldly vocals to give an empathetic and nurturing quality, while The Midwives Have Left continues along the same lines of moving chords and vocals that provide more of a tonal quality to the track, rather than lyrical content.
The second half of the album kicks off with by far my favourite track, Home. Its a perfect balance of distorted and bouncy beats, much like some of Bat For Lashes older tracks (like Sleep Alone, for example). Following is somewhat of a filler/foyer synth and sax track Breaking Up, the predominantly electro-instrumental Delphi Dancing (with vocals providing tone rather than lyrics) and Her First Morning – which has an almost choir-like quality to the vocals, with stripped back piano and flute providing a fantastic artistic interpretation of a morning sunrise. Rounding off proceedings we have Waking up – synths in full swing, providing a euphoric quality, which later in the song reduces to a simple piano before …’fin’.
The Dream of Delphi is art, rather than an album of hits. There are some tracks which I think are fantastic in a stand-alone capacity (see The Dream of Delphi and Home particularly)… but this is very much an avant-garde electro-pop album, in my opinion. There are parts of that aspect album that I really enjoyed (particularly Her First Morning), and honestly the track lengths do lead to you enduring where you normally would not. I don’t think this is an album for everyone, but I do think it’s an album that everyone could listen to, start to end, once, and make their minds up. SO what’s stopping you!?!?
