Bat for Lashes-The dream of delphi (RED VINYL) 31/5/24

it’s a sonic archive of a time when natasha birthed her daughter delphi earth side. the record weaves together ten song poems, documenting the polarity of navigating both an exterior world that was seemingly turning upside down, whilst also experiencing the profoundly personal and transformational early moments of mothering delphi, named after the greek oracle, the ancient future teller.the music became natasha’s sanctuary, born out of stolen trips to the studio, where each track was improvised and completed in a few hours and chronologises her diary like offerings over a period of two years; from “the midwives have left”; to writing a “letter to my daughter”; and all the way through to “waking up”, as well as a cover of her daughter’s favourite song, “home”. while the storytelling behind bat for lashes’ previous albums have traditionally used otherworldly narratives and female lead characters (e.g. ‘laura’, ‘daniel’ and ‘the bride’), for the first time, ‘the dream of delphi’ is about natasha’s personal experience of themagical and sometimes melancholy intimacy of early motherhood. this record creates a more private form of mythology around the music than her previous work.