5. Bat for LashesThe Bride
I love this record. I’ve been a fan of Natasha since the beginning, actually. I love all her records but this record in particular, I just the way it’s telling a story. I think she did her first gig for this album in London in a church. I think it might have been a fan club only event and she asked everyone to dress up in wedding attire. There’s a theatrical side to her work.
And I actually drove up to Leeds from Devon, quite recently, to go and see her live. It was a bit random, but my husband was tour managing her. And one of my best friends lives in Manchester, so I picked her up and we went on to Leeds to see her play. She’s one of these artists that I’d just not seen live, for whatever reason. I think every time she’d been touring, I was touring; it’s often a problem to be able to get to see people play and we tend to clash quite a lot.
And so I saw her in a little place in Leeds a couple of months ago. She was just amazing, really beautiful. She opened the set with three tracks off her new album, which I think is coming out early next year, and I thought that was incredibly brave. It was really good.
I love The Bride and I love the story. It weaves throughout the record and it’s just a bit different for me. I’m sure there are other albums out there that do storytelling like that. But that’s kind of the first one I’d heard doing it like that. And I just thought, yeah, you’re pretty genius. And the songs are great. And she’s got great voice.
