Bat for Lashes is the doppelgänger band ego of one of the leading millennial lights in British music, Natasha Khan.  Caroline Weeks, Abi Fry and Lizzy Carey comprise the aurora borealis that backs this haunting, shimmering zither and glockenspiel peacock, and the only complaint coming from the audience at the Bowery Ballroom last Tuesday was that they could not camp out all night underneath these celestial bodies.    
We live in the age of the lazy tendency to categorize the work of one artist against another, and Khan has had endless exultations as the next Björk and Kate Bush;  Sixousie Sioux, Stevie Nicks, Sinead O'Connor, the list goes on until it is almost meaningless as comparison does little justice to the sound and vision of the band.  "I think Bat For Lashes are beyond a trend or fashion band," said Jefferson Hack, publisher of Dazed & Confused magazine. "[Khan] has an ancient power...she is in part shamanic."  She describes her aesthetic as "powerful women with a cosmic edge" as seen in Jane Birkin, Nico and Cleopatra.  And these women are being heard.  "I love the harpsichord and the sexual ghost voices and bowed saws," said Radiohead's Thom Yorke of the track Horse and I. "This song seems to come from the world of Grimm's fairytales."
Bat's debut album, Fur And Gold, was nominated for the 2007 Mercury Prize, and they were seen as the dark horse favorite until it was announced Klaxons had won.  Even Ladbrokes, the largest gambling company in the United Kingdom, had put their money on Bat for Lashes.  "It was a surprise that Klaxons won," said Khan, "but I think everyone up for the award is brilliant and would have deserved to win."
Natasha recently spoke with David Shankbone about art, transvestism and drug use in the music business.  
DS:  Do you have any favorite books?
DS:  Lynch just came out with a movie last year called Inland Empire.  I interviewed John Vanderslice last night at the Bowery Ballroom and he raved about it!
DS:  Do you notice a difference between playing in front of British and American audiences?
DS:  How many instruments do you play and, please, include the glockenspiel in that number.
DS:  --I have a great photo of you playing the bass.
DS:  You look cool with it!
DS:  Do you design your own clothes?
DS:  —that's Will Lemon from Moon and Moon, right?  There is such good buzz about them here in New York.
DS:  You are often compared to Björk and Kate Bush; do those constant comparisons tend to bother you as an artist who is trying to define herself on her own terms?
DS:  —as are you—
DS:  I'd imagine it's preferable to be considered the next Björk or Kate Bush instead of the next Britney.
DS:  Does music feed your artwork, or does you artwork feed your music more?  Or is the relationship completely symbiotic?
DS:  When you are composing music, do you see notes and words as colors and images in your mind, and then you put those down on paper?
DS:  Is it always pine trees that you see?
DS:  What things in nature inspire you?
DS:  Are there man-made things that inspire you?
DS:  I photographed some of the famous drag queens here in New York.  They are just such great creatures to photograph; they will do just about anything for the camera.  I photographed a famous drag queen named Miss Understood who is the emcee at a drag queen restaurant here named Lucky Cheng's.  We were out in front of Lucky Cheng's taking photographs and a bus was coming down First Avenue, and I said, "Go out and stop that bus!" and she did!  It's an amazing shot.  
DS:  If you go on her Wikipedia article it's there.
DS:  There are just so few areas left where there is natural edge and art that is not contrived.  It's taking a contrived thing like changing your gender, but in the backdrop of how that is still so socially unacceptable.
DS:  How are you received in the Pakistani community?
DS:  When you see artists like Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse out on these suicidal binges of drug use, what do you think as a musician?  What do you get from what you see them go through in their personal lives and with their music?
DS:  Is it difficult to come to the United States to play considering all the wars we start?

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Bat for Lashes plays the Bowery Ballroom: an Interview with Natasha Khan