Bat for Lashes Expands Her Range on the Road

Posted on May 8th 2009 3:00PM by Mike Ayers
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As Bat for Lashes tours North America behind her new album, 'Two Suns,' she does so, as she says, with more confidence. "I picked up so many experiences and instances, and had such a vast range of emotions [after the first album]" Natasha Khan tells Spinner. "Before I made this record, I listened back to the old one and I noticed how vastly my voice has changed and how much more confident I was; just naturally from touring and playing live so much, the vocal had much more broader range."

In studying the way she composed her first record, Khan recalls that the finished product was kept rather close to the demos she made. Not so on 'Two Suns.' "I think it's quite noticeable how much it progressed," she says. "But I didn't realize it until I got my songs together and started listening to the melodies, and realized how much more varied they were than the first album."

Alongside her own vocal prowess, Khan wrangled enigmatic singer Scott Walker to contribute his warbled voice on the album's closer, 'The Big Sleep.' "It was very spontaneous," she says of their collaboration. "I wrote 'The Big Sleep' quite a while before I approached him; I thought there was this gap that I imagined his vocal on. We sent back these lovely, creative emails and discussed the characters in the songs. And he sent me back his vocals and I played around with them."

Khan's slated to return to the West coast after a European jaunt, on June 10th at Seattle's Crocodile. Plan accordingly.

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