London-based musician and multi-disciplinary artist Natasha Khan – aka Bat For Lashes – has announced the release of her sixth studio album The Dream Of Delphi on May 31.
The release will be Bat For Lashes’ first since signing 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 in the locked-down summer of 2020, The Dream of Delphi finds Khan reflecting on early motherhood in her most personal album to date.
The news coincides with the announcement of her first run of headline UK shows in five years including a landmark date at The Barbican on June 24. Tickets go on sale March 1 with artist presale from 28 February. Visit the artist’s official website for further information.
The new single is accompanied by a stunning video shot 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 longform album film, with more information to be revealed soon. You can watch the first chapter of “The Dream Of Delphi” video below.
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 from Khan. Feeling ancient and astral but at the same time novel and exciting. The album invites the listener through a journey of devotional love songs about the spirituality, ancestry and folklore; but also the mundane, selfless and tender aspects of child rearing that all mothers can attest to.
Revealing more about the track, Natasha adds: “This is the manifesto of the album. It’s like a spell being cast. It’s the conjuring, the manifestation, the drawing-down of Delphi from the ether. This is me calling on her soul. It’s about going up into the stars and down into the underworld simultaneously, how celestials and deep guttural sounds can come together, how that reflects the journey I went on. It’s about what happens when you’re stretched physically, mentally, even vaginally! I think it’s just humbled me, too, becoming a mother. It’s made me feel more vulnerable than I’ve ever felt before. But I feel more human, more embodied. I can’t escape life by making beautiful things as much as I did. But there’s sort of a beauty to my mortality now.”
“Motherhood I thought would take me away from my art, but it opened up this massive world,” continues Natasha Khan, six albums into a career of vivid creative shifts, examining female archetypes in conceptually rich, musically rewarding explorations – but none of them as personal, raw or vulnerably powerful an experience as The Dream Of Delphi.
Pre-order The Dream Of Delphi.
Bat For Lashes: UK and European tour dates:
12-Jun O2 Academy 2, Oxford UK
18-Jun Town Hall, Birmingham, UK
19-Jun Beacon, Bristol, UK
24-Jun Barbican, London, UK
25-Jun Bexhill De La Warr Pavillion, UK
27-Jun Aviva Studios, Manchester, UK
6-Jul Beauregard Festival, France
29-Jun Siren’s Call Festival, Luxembourg
18-Jul Colours of Ostrava, Czech Republic
