Lorna Irvine reviews 'a strange brew...but a refreshing one'.
Batshit.
That's this mini-album, a collaboration between Bat For Lashes' goddess Natasha Khan, members of psych-garage band Toy and producer Dan Carey.
Clearly, Khan is going for a kind of sonic catharsis. More oddball than BFL or Toy, these six tracks are like incantations. All covers of Middle Eastern or obscure folky songs, they are distinctly imprinted with Khan's swooning vocals but more rooted in esoteric experimentation.
Skip Spence's 'War in Peace' is suitably trippy, and 'Helelyos' features spooky Gothic whistling, but when it ignites, such as the trancey 'Kassidat El Hakka' it's wonderful. Like a demented exorcism, Khan screams, 'When I die I'm going back to what I was...NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING!'
'Ha Howa Ha Howa' with its orgasmic vocals could almost be a pagan Donna Summer in her prime—dancey, sexy and hypnotic.
It's a strange brew, okay, but a refreshing one, managing to avoid clichés of kaftans, patchouli, pills and big illegal cigarettes. I dig it. But it's completely batshit. And out in time for Halloween. Careful Googling it, though.
'Sex Witch' is out now on Echo Records