Bat For Lashes / Felix

Diminutive Lucinda Chua, the centre point around which the world of Felix spins, sits perched like a china doll before her overbearing electric piano. Staring deeply into the ivory keys, she unfurls Regina Spektor-esque piano meanders, aided solely by some atmospheric guitar fuzz.

The music that resonates through the modestly filled Rescue Rooms runs a lot deeper than the porcelain pose lets on, leaving it shattered as Chua shares her deepest worries. "If I had told my mother I loved her/ my sister I missed her/ my father that he was like no other/ and if I was not bitter about the lover/ who left me crying at the alter/ I would be better, I would be stronger," she trembles on ‘What I Learnt From TV’, as her accomplice plays guitar with a violin bow.

A song that either confesses all the life troubles of the singer before us, or ironically projects television’s vision of the downtrodden – who knows, judge by the sincerity on her face as she sings it – if there is merit to the sentiment it is hard to place. Her voice is seductive enough, but once she’s reeled you in she doesn’t do much with it – melodies ruminate around the same chords – she hints that there is something deeper going on, but isn’t confident enough to truly shock you with it.

Still, a lofty, piano-informed cover of the Ghostbusters theme tune (yes, really) goes down well, leaving everyone in titters – Felix may not quite be ready to snatch any headlines yet, but with music as earnest as this there’s still much pleasure to be had.

While Felix are still getting to grips with their semiotic origin, Bat For Lashes, aka Natasha Khan (singer/songwriter) and her versatile trio of supporting musicians, appear completely at ease with their primordial roots. In magical attire that sits between Shakespearian pixie and 60’s hippy, Khan’s enchanting instrumentation, combined with her deeply resonating voice, reclaims femininity and communicates it in a way that transcends masculine language (one for the feminist community out there).

Indeed, the show is fascinating from a gendered point of view. They frequently adopt the phallic symbol of power, be it via a huge drum hung protruding from their waist, or by creating a beat by stamping a large pole on the ground between their legs. In asserting symbolic dominance over the crowd, Khan’s sound and language echo in a much deeper place – one away from society, men and women and their needs to define themselves against one another. It reminds us of nature, and the innocence we are born with.

Away from that pseudo crap (sorry about that, folks), the songs are excellent. ‘Sarah’ is a tribal wail from a pagan fire ceremony, while the haunting ‘Priscilla’ rumbles like the onset of volcanic lava flow. "I’ll be boy and you be girl" sings the grand underbelly of finale ‘Moon and Moon’, before reconciling the gender reversal, suggesting both boy and girl become "moon". Bat For Lashes goes beyond typecast and social roles, digging deeper into the very core of living.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.