Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes) creates a compelling narrative in her latest release, Lost Girls (AWAL). Ever since her debut album Fur and Gold in 2006, Khan has created albums rooted in a storyline. Her goal with Fur and Gold was to make something that started at dusk and ended at dawn. Concept album Two Suns (2009) was based on her alter ego, the self-destructive and brazen, Pearl. Her third album, The Haunted Man (2012) was based on the trauma and marital strife after the return home of a man who was away at war, while 2016’s The Bride tells the tale of a bride who loses her husband in a car crash on his way to their wedding.
While Khan’s work has always been highly cinematic, Lost Girls is her most fully realized release in which the vision matches the final product. The ambitious artist is known for her signature universe that has long dealt with nostalgia and longing through a playful, 80s cinematic sphere. In previous albums, the strong tracks are gems while some ideas have meandered away from the plot. It is with Lost Girls that she has achieved true equilibrium.
Telling the tale of a gender-flipped Lost Boys via heroine, Nikki Pink and her vampire biker girl gang, guides the listener through the night time streets of a make-believe 1980s Hollywood. Instantly atmospheric album opener, ‘Kids in the Dark’ flows with spectral synths and the fun of being young and out in the freedom of the night. ‘Hunger’ is an ominous windscape bringing to mind the famous young vampires-hanging-from-the-bridge scene in The Lost Boys married with a subtle nod to The Goonies soundtrack.
Not just dark imagery, Lost Girls features dancy scenes such as ‘Feel For You’ reminiscent of Black Mirror’s San Junipero dance club moments with Purple Rain era Prince guitar stylings that appear again in ‘Safe Tonight’. The dark synthwave ‘So Good’ is the dance anthem the 80s always needed, laced with Italo Disco elements.
‘Desert Man’ takes us back to the mysterious, sprawling keys found on Fur and Gold and Two Suns. Khan has often explored the mystery of the American desert in a way that was as equally explored by the likes of The Doors channelled by way of Dead Can Dance via Khan’s steamy, drifting mirage vocals.
The cinematic ‘Jasmine’ features the badass female protagonist cruising empty early morning Hollywood streets, passing the most Hollywood of Hollywood cemetaries: Hollywood Forever. Khan explains in an eerie spoken-word echo, ‘when she blooms, she kills. Equally cinematic instrumental ‘Vampires’ is rich goth Lost Boys goodness (even featuring a raunchy saxophone solo), that (despite the saxophone solo) brings to mine The Cure.
Lost Girls is the perfect soundtrack to get lost in over the course of the autumn season. There is a perfect balance of 80s froth and goth to make this album compulsively listenable. Now, how about the film to go along with this brilliant soundtrack, Natasha?