Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 126: Natasha Khan aka Bat for Lashes

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Bat For Lashes aka Natasha Khan is a singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and a mum to a three year old.  She has just brought out her 6th album and this one is inspired by the birth of her daughter and is called The Dream of Delphi. She was pregnant in LA during Covid and the album recalls how she reconnected with nature during that time, reflecting the landscape of the city, mountains and the desert. She's now separated from Delphi's Dad but explained they are still best friends and happily co-parent together.We spoke about how she felt about becoming a mum later in life and we talked about that special liminal moment when you have just given birth and it dawns on you that you are moving from who you were into who you are going to be - a transformational moment.Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing. It can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Morning. Well, it is for me. I'm speaking to you from Sunday morning. It's the middle of a

bank holiday weekend here in the United Kingdom. And I haven't got tons of plans, actually. I haven't got tons of plans, actually. Richard's been away on tour with The Feeling, and so I've been sort of pottering with the kids, really. Yesterday, just following our noses where the day went, and today I've got a gig, and tomorrow, I know my mum and my sister are going to come for supper, but I haven't actually got any, like, solid plans.

So this morning, my 12-year-old was like, what are we doing today, what are we doing tomorrow? And I'm like, not really a whole lot actually planned. But the sun is shining, so maybe we'll get outside today. That'd be nice. So ready for spring. I'm so bored of rain and cold days. So yeah, get on it, United Kingdom. Get on it it London uh I'm also going through this I think I've told you already this crazy sorting out phase where I keep organizing and sorting I don't know if anybody would relate to this but while I've been doing this crazy sorting there's a bit where you get rid of a load of things and things look a little bit worse I wonder if it's because you kind of got your everything's in their home and then you take a third of it away

and everything just suddenly looks a bit like, I don't know, it's not anchored in the same way it was with all your bits and bobs, even if there were things you don't really need. So anyway, I'm persevering. I really, really, really, really, really want to just get it all done. I'm so in the mood,

I think I'm trying to capitalise on this slight lack of sentimentality that I have at the moment because it means it's easier to get rid of things and I also had a bonkers moment on Friday where one of my kids was having a sleepover and while he was downstairs sleeping in the den with his mate I reconfigured all the furniture in his room at like 11.30

at night quite wild really I don't know what this is about some strange energy I have at the moment. I've also been doing lots of songwriting. I wrote how many songs last week? One, two, three, four, five. Five songs last week.

A couple of which I think actually might be friends for a little while. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. I've got another songwriting couple of sessions in the next few weeks. It's such a nice way to spend the days. I absolutely love it. And I've been working with some lovely people. And then on Saturday, yesterday, I played some of my new stuff to my eldest and he was being positive. And my 15 year old was being very, very dismissive. It's like, do you like this one? No. Do you like this one? No.

Can you pass me the ketchup? He was eating a bacon sandwich. He did not have much interest in my fares. It's okay. I don't mind. Not my fares, my wares. Sorry. Morning brain.

Anyway, it's enough waffling around for you. I have a lovely guest this week who served up Spinning Plates remit, sort of on a plate really, because she's a singer who has now become a mum for the first time in 2020 and has written a whole album about motherhood. So, you know, when we're looking at working women who happen to be mothers and how motherhood and career have influenced one another, it's like

pretty damn peachy how this has all worked out so I'm talking about Natasha Khan who is known as Bat for Lashes and she's superb I've been a fan of her for a very long time since the beginning actually of her her solo career I love her voice her drama her music, where she's coming from. I think it's just gorgeous. So many beautiful soundscapes and some songs like Daniel and Desert Man and What's a Girl to Do. They're songs that are in my, you know, some of my favourite songs. I play them a lot. And her new album is absolutely beautiful it's really really gorgeous and was all inspired by the birth of her daughter Delphi who was born in 2020 and so in and out of lockdowns and in LA where Natasha lives back now in the UK but she was living in LA at the time so in this

you know different world different landscape new baby strange things happening in the world she's written this gorgeous landscape of songs all about matrescence and the act of what happens to you when you become a mother and it's very beautiful so it was an absolute joy to sit down and talk with her about it and you know a couple of the songs have already come out and the album itself is released in june and it's very pretty so check out what's already out there because it's lovely really really gorgeous if you haven't already of course and it was just a pleasure to talk to her and i will i will now cease my ramble and see you on the other side of our chat. See you in a bit.

Well, firstly, it's so nice to see you. Thank you for coming over. So you're about to release your sixth record. How are you feeling at this point? What are your, are you good with your, this stage of release um I'm we're sort of a few weeks into it now so the third single's just come out so I'm I'm in a flow when the first single came out I was it was quite a big deal because it had been five or six years since I'd yeah that's pretty pretty big gap actually but I suppose you obviously we had we'll get into

everything that went on in that gap but actually that's nice that you don't feel like the album is a separate beast then once you're into like the first single you're already in the flow of it yes I think for me I always get nervous when the whole album comes out but maybe that's the single for me is like I don't know like introducing the first couple of people from the cast yeah so I always get like oh yeah as it builds up but um but it's exciting and it's always a big deal isn't it when a record comes out yeah it's like a little baby that you have to then give out into the world so but I feel this one is so personal and so raw and intimate that I think because three songs have

come out now it's I'm kind of like used to that level of exposure yeah um and so now when the rest of it comes out I think people will get the full picture which sort of gives me reassurance that they'll they know what world they're going into that makes sense yeah do you think this is possibly the most sort of intimate then your records I think so yeah I mean I suppose on the last five records I've used definitely you know a lot of storytelling and narratives and characters that I've given names to and for each one I've like written a script or a novella or some kind of story that goes with the album so it's not that I've hidden behind those things

but I've used those things as a way to like present the work yeah it's inspiration yeah and it's really nice isn't it to to do the storytelling part but I think with this one because it's about the birth of my daughter um I couldn't there was nothing to hide or I didn't want to hide really but it just has come so directly from that intimate place that it is quite different it feels yeah just much more raw and honest and or just pure I suppose it's not and also huge i mean it's such a rich um pot to delve into because the idea of mother and motherhood and all the ways you can cut through it all the angles you can take it that's a it's very it gives you a lot it's bountountiful, isn't it, as a sort of, the symbolism of it, down to the actual very, the domestic,

the way it affects your actual day-to-day life. It can kind of start off small and go huge or go the other way around. Yeah, I felt both of those things really grew. Like the domestic, mundane, repetitive, grounding sort of activities were really apparent obviously especially with a newborn at the time I started writing the album and I suppose I didn't realize but I was craving that as a traveling musician and someone that was very like

troubadoury in a lot of ways I didn't quite realize how much I needed those roots again and it it took me back to my childhood and then brought up a lot of stuff for healing like a lot of um you know generational things that have been passed down it sort of unlocked this Pandora's box of very old kind of domestic themed stuff while simultaneously having this like epic existential like awakening about the fact that when she was born you know I kind of saw her coming through this portal and coming out into my arms and when that happened I just had this massive realization that we all come through and go back out of that place and I suddenly felt like this connectivity between all humankind

and all living animals and nature and everything I was just like, okay, so this is like a spiritual awakening that's happening right now where there's a pulse through all of the ancestry and the past and the present and the future exactly and just that it it was very um it was awe-inspiring and humbling at the same time I love this yeah it's just this whole thing about you're almost like bigger than you ever were and smaller than it that movement between the largeness of your heart and like how much you can love something and then how suffocating and intense

and small it can also feel so yeah it's like you're really stretching yourself in a way that's really well put and I think I remember when I became a mum I felt like so many of the things I was experiencing ranged from this sort of universal themes the stuff that suddenly connects you to conversations and thoughts and practices and emotions that must have been going on you know stretching back back back but also at the same time you're the first person to have had that baby that's the first time they've exist so it's something brand new totally new and unfurling personal to you yeah yeah and working out what kind of parent you want to be, what priorities you have.

And also, yeah, as you say, looking back to your childhood and thinking through aspects of it and working out which things you think, oh, I would love to bring some of that with me if I can and other things we think, oh, wow, I can see that through different eyes now. Yeah, and just how sort of I feel like society's really moved on. Definitely.

You know, my mum had me in 79 when she was 21, and I had Delphi in 2020 when I was 40. So there was like a very different approach and the way we've moved on with mental health and understanding attachment and just the capabilities and the support my mum had were very different to what I have. And, yeah, it's passing out like how what you want to bring with you my mum was always singing in the car she took me to Michael Jackson's

concert when I was nine and you know like she was a sexy cool fashionable young mum and always fun and like wanting to do things with us and so I feel like that you know I I sing with Delphi in the car and I feel like oh it's passing down like this nice uh fun aspect but then you know all the bits that she was so nervous about or didn't understand about rearing a baby um are you the eldest in your yes I sort of empathize with those things but also having been a preschool teacher and stuff I think I was already kind of ahead in the next generation you know sort of empathise with those things, but also having been a preschool teacher and stuff, I think I was already kind of ahead in the next generation, you know, sort of moving it forward. Yeah, and also I suppose you've had friends that have become parents

and you're sort of getting to see that change in them too. And you're right, I think that we talk a lot more about parenthood, I feel like, in a sort of front and centre way than maybe they did in like late 70s, early 80s, when it was just a thing you would go off and do a bit more quietly yeah maybe your support system be closer to home but now it's so open to have conversations about parenthood and how it affects people and finding support and the you know the joys but also the things that are the anguish of bits or just the sort of you know the bits where people just need to vent a little bit and go this is some of this is hard yeah

yeah some of it's really hard um yeah and I think you know just all the different types of families nowadays because I when when I was little my parents divorced and my mum as a single mum brought up three children on her own and and and me and Delphi's father are separated but we're like best mates and he lives eight minutes down the road and we co-parent in this very sort of like connected way and you know I didn't I felt like sometimes you know when we were younger divorce and all of that was sort of a real failure whereas now there's all these sort of new options and more unconventional ways of like trying to create that family dynamic and love a child and

yeah I think that's true there's a modern perspective yeah there's a bit less pressure although I do feel like you know that traditional thing of like the family unit and all of that you know it's something that you you want and you aspire to but it's just yeah I think life is it always turns out differently than you expect well for me but do you think motherhood was always something you wanted yes it was it was actually I think I had a lot of things to work through um and so I end up having her later but I'm actually really glad I did it then um because I had such a full career and there's nothing to kind of I don't resent anything or I don't feel kind of stopped held

back by anything but um yeah being a more mature mum is I quite like it I feel more more sort of confident in myself maybe it took me a bit longer to get get there or something yeah I don't I just think that whenever that however the cards fall is the life you know and there's different ways that affects things but actually there's there's wonderful aspects to all of it I've got quite a few girlfriends that became first-time mums in there when they were like 40 41 um and it's been really lovely to see the approach and it's made me think a little bit reflect a little bit because were you quite young when you started so I was 25 when I had my first and it's amazing been amazing listening to your album I've been lucky enough to listen to all of it and it's so beautiful I love what you've

created and it made me think so much because um I kept my motherhood completely out of my music when I became a mum. Consciously. I'm not writing any songs about being a mum. Not because I was embarrassed or ashamed or anything, but because I needed my work to fill this separate space. But I feel like if I'd been open to it in a different way, and possibly as well as a pop artist,

it's a more clunky juxtaposition yeah um well certainly was then I felt like um but I love how you've been so open to this to the thematics that come along with it and I was thinking about the fact that you're also in this lockdown period so it's 2020 you have your home birth you're in a country which I know you've been living in then a little minute but it still wasn't you know when you're away from family exactly yes you could just sort of really delve into these thoughts in a way that you might not have been had the same way of approaching it if it had been part of the bustle of lots of other things yeah I do look back on it I get goosebumps just now talking about it

because I think I've realized in hindsight that a lot of my girlfriends are trying to go through that same process with the pressure of like working right up to the due date and just like all the things of like am I gonna fall out of the workforce or you know like absolutely and at that point I didn't realize quite how lucky I was that COVID was obviously quite an anxious, difficult time for lots of people. But for me, I was pregnant. And so I kind of took that opportunity and ran with it. And we just, we locked down, but I went inwards. And I did a lot of meditation and connecting with the baby and loads of pregnancy yoga, loads of walking we

went out to the redwoods we went swimming in lakes we just did everything we could to immerse in nature and I felt this massive love and reconnection with nature and obviously being in LA I was really lucky because it's so outdoorsy and sunny and you're just out all the time but it was sort of this utopian moment where I felt like this child you know I'm growing this child the world has stopped and like I don't have anything that I feel I'm missing out on or like I need to catch up to and so you're right I just sort of embraced it and because it was it was such a reconnection and so nourishing in that way, I just felt like I couldn't not make music about it because it was so profound and it wasn't working on just,

like you say, it's that unique child that's your own, so there's that very personal story. But the layers that were kind of occurring to me that were really vast and reaching out to all of our lives and just like what I feel about you know the dwindling of like biodiversity and our lack of connection with nature how we live in concrete jungles and the rise in stress and anxiety and mental health issues and you know like a lot of nuclear families sort of struggling in their tiny unit and not really having that community it kind of all the themes of lockdown mixed with pregnancy

um created this whole like manifesto of like we need to do this more we need you know like I just felt suddenly had these huge huge feelings and thoughts about how I'd been living my life that wasn't very nurturing. Yeah, and possibly, I think some of the things you've been talking about, you don't necessarily discover those. I mean, becoming a parent is quite a seismic thing when it happens to somebody. It's such a massive before and after but obviously you can reach all these thoughts regardless because we all come from something we all come from somewhere we're all part of the line when you get a bit older you start thinking about legacy and what things what we prioritize what matters to you who surround yourself with and that thing of uh the world

stopping in that way i mean it sounds like that thing of when you're describing, you know, being in the lakes, I'm thinking it sounds kind of magical, actually, because you really can have a sort of perspective that's quite unique. But then that can come to people just by the choices they're making in life and thinking, hang on a minute. At this point in my life, do I still want to prioritize work as much? Who am I actually? What are my friends like? How do I I hope people remember me what am I leaving for the next person you don't necessarily you don't have to discover that through no and I think people have spiritual awakenings all the time yeah I think sometimes it's through the death of a parent or someone

yes that's very true sudden death or um yeah like moving country or changing your career but I maybe it's also interesting having a baby at 40 that I was sort of on the cusp of like my midlife crisis astrologically they're like you're heading into midlife crisis territory and I feel like it I wouldn't call it a crisis but a re repositioning or something yeah um i found quite powerful but yeah i found it really powerful i'm finding it really positive but i think that um for me having delphi was sort of this such a potent way of doing it um that it kind of threw me into something quite deeply and but yeah I agree with you I don't think you have to be a mother to understand these themes I think the themes that have come up for me is that we all are connected we we're all part of mother nature like the greatest mother and that

whole mother wound of like how we treat nature or how we see ourselves as part of it or not part of it is universal and and so I yeah with this record I was like you know some people were writing and saying you know my mum passed away last year and listening to this is like giving me so much comfort and then other people that are like I you know I'm really feeling this disconnection from my place in the world and so I I almost made the album as a it's a celebration of my own personal experience but I think the mother witch archetype that kind of sits over it all was my feeling that suddenly my heart was so huge that I wanted to like hold everybody and nurture everyone in this sort of maternal balm that I wanted to like put around people

because I realised that we're all capable of this unconditional love and it's so regenerative it doesn't take from you it gives you more and more and more um and suddenly I was like I want to look after everybody you know like that feeling I totally understand that yeah that feeling of like shedding parts of yourself to be kind of open to I think actually in a way that's partly part of what prompted me to start these conversations in a way as well because you get this lovely feeling of um through the conversations you sort of hear other people's stories their, the wisdom and empathy and just that connection with everybody. I just really, I really like it. Yeah. And I feel that sometimes even when I'm on

stage, that kind of heartbeat feeling of just like everybody there, like, oh, definitely. And I wasn't expecting that with getting older, but I really, I really like it. Yeah. I think there's, you know, I think women as they get older, regardless of having children or not think there's, you know, I think women as they get older, regardless of having children or not, there's, you know, so much beauty and wisdom that comes out of it. And I think society is not very good at recognising that. But in other cultures, they, you know, women are revered the older they get. Yes.

And I do think that there becomes that sort of, you know, they talk about like the divine masculine presence is like it's very holding and just kind of containing and present but I also think the divine feminine presence is that too it just you kind of become like once you've parented yourself internally and you feel like more secure which I think happens later there's more to give and there's more to hold in other people and I suppose I'm stepping into that like between the maiden and maiden mother and the crown like it's all kind of it's all happening inside of me but there's this really interesting like powerful um wish to yeah just love and hold a bit more other other people a bit more. And I think because of the nature of our jobs,

we are so lucky because we get to encourage that part of us. We're sort of observant of how we're feeling about things and how things shift and what we're open to. I love the fact that you can have a profound thought or a feeling or awareness about what's happening in your life or how you're feeling about something and you're able to channel it into actually producing something you know music like it's just the best thing because not everybody's lucky enough to be able to take that and then actually make it part of something they create that day

it's a really it's a real privilege isn't it it is a real privilege i'm really aware of that as well and um yeah just transmuting off i mean i think my career started transmuting a lot of pain into you know trying to make sense of a lot of difficulty and putting it into music um but over a lifetime it's really liberating to feel that it's now translating into things that I'm celebrating or like that are generating a different kind of energy so um I think everybody you know regardless of what job you have I think there is a way to take those reflective or to encourage those reflective moments and to put them into something yeah I think I think it's true. And I think the way society is set up for most people, that it doesn't really allow that space. And the same about allowing the space for really descending into being pregnant

and having a baby or really taking time to grieve the loss of someone. I feel like everything moves so quickly. For me, this new album as well is there's quite a lot of excuse me like quiet contemplative music on there because there's almost like this underlying encouragement to slow down and feel things and sense the air in the room and just like be quiet and reflect because that's been my go-to method for years and years is as the world gets faster and more intense it's almost like I want to I want to you know acknowledge how important still it is to to be in those moments and I think the album you know there's songs like the midwives have left when

yeah um Delphi was born at like quarter to three in the morning or something that's such an evocative title as well yeah that first moment when you're alone yeah yeah and the we were in our bedroom and we had like these double doors that go out to outside and it was that sort of like twilighty light and my partner and the baby baby's sleep on my chest and they left and I was just like there was this melancholic moment this like liminal space between who I was and who I was going to be um and I just felt this like I felt engulfed by this I don't know just very foreign feeling yeah and it was something that I had to sit with for a while because I always had so much adrenaline from the birth and stuff I didn't want to couldn't go to sleep and I had this baby on my chest like you

know there's all this excitement but um writing that song was so much about those in-between moments between you being someone you were and who you might become. It's like that transformational cycle. And just, you know, I think just in the act of listening to that, it's hopefully like putting a little punctuation or some brackets around, like take time to feel the space in this,

even if it's uncomfortable or foreign to you because it's not going to last. Like there's another song, Her First Morning, which was like a few hours later we wake up and it's a brand new day and it's a new life and it was like so full of joy. But I think my decision to put those tracks on the album, even though at times I was like,

are people going to find it a bit boring or a bit quiet or there's no singing in it or it's not got a verse and chorus, you know, there's these judgements that come up. But no, I think there's a place for that, especially nowadays. Yeah, and also I think, you know, you're a creative person who's earned the space to make the music that you want to be making people will go where you lead them

you've built up to this album number six you know I'm allowed and it's such a diary entry isn't it and you know when you were thinking about the midwives had left you know you didn't know you were necessarily going to get to her first dance

you know all these things and I think albums often are like diary entries. It's not always necessarily as on the surface as that, but sometimes you'll go back and go, wow, I didn't realise that how these other themes had crept in that were coming from other places and there they all are, you know. You've sort of sometimes been a lot more open with things than you realise through the music, like one've sometimes been a lot more open with things than you realise through the music. Like, one has often been a lot more open. I suppose the thing as well that I thought was really impressive, not just to be able to articulate those feelings in music,

because it's wonderful to be inspired by, but to actually create something that you think justifies or finds that spot, I think is really special. Also, I think, were you ever worried about how it would affect your creativity because I know before I became a parent I thought how do I find my way back to me in this yeah I was worried and mostly from the projections of others like um gosh you've lived your life so creative you've done just what you want you might struggle a bit being a mum or you might not you might resent her because you can't do...

That's helpful. I feel like that's a bit of an old-fashioned... Yeah, or maybe that comes from people that felt that themselves. But sort of like it did enter my mind and rattle around a bit and I did sort of feel a bit worried at times, bit and I I did sort of feel a bit worried at times but I definitely wasn't um expecting that it would fuel the creativity as much as it did exactly um you know I've had an album I did a deck of oracle cards and I've written a like a surrealist novella yeah and they all they're all different like a trilogy of work that all came from that moment. But I think because my creative cogs were so well oiled anyway, it's just who I am now.

That it's sort of like, I couldn't really stop doing that. It just added to, you know, I describe it as my heart felt a certain depth and I had mined that area for many years. And like gone in and out of the strings of my heart like cleaning them and trying to make sense of things but then this whole this sort of massive thing happened and then I felt like fathoms of depth like were added and there was this whole like place inside of me that I'd never even seen before so to have that 40 I was like this is awesome yeah yeah so rich you know people people do things on purpose like have affairs or like move to Italy or become a monk or something just to like just to you know it's like finding your house has got this unexpected wing you don't know

this whole space it's wonderful it was wonderful yeah so I felt I was really grateful to have this extra space. And it wasn't all amazing and perfect. You know, there was a lot of that early on, especially like, who the hell am I? I'm just like going from breastfeeds to naps to, you know, just trying to juggle relationships and my baby. And I felt at times, even on my days,

I remember like my first day that I took to myself and I just spent the whole time thinking about my baby. And I was like, oh, my God, come on. Like, you know, but it just wasn't the right time. And I was I tried to fight it a bit. And then I just thought, look, it's OK. You know, I will come back to myself eventually. Maybe nature's just, you know, trying to push me at this point to to bond and just to be like a slave to this child but then there's a song at your feet on the album which is which is all

about that devotional love and just being sort of fully there at the service of another being um i know that feeling totally yeah or like you know and i think sometimes about people that care for their elderly parents and like for years you know like we we go through it for a year or you know yeah that's true there's that whole sort of like devotional aspect of humans that i think is really so beautiful and um i think we're all sort of grappling to make ourselves feel better all the time and to sort of like get things and put things in and consume things but what I realize in the act of like being so giving to another human being it just like there's something in that that fills you up in a different way yeah um it's very it sort of like crumbles you yes and uh and then we rebuild yeah yeah so

that was really interesting and have you had it yet where you felt because your little girl still she's actually at the age that i think objectively is like my favorite age i think three is just brilliant so funny yeah so funny she just went to aust and she's come back saying put your phone away mate that's all put your phone away mate that's great I want my nightie can I have a nightie tonight she just like suddenly is Australian it's so good after two weeks she's really funny yeah I like it um but have you had it? Because I'm trying to think when you've just gotten so little. Because the nature of our work allows you to embrace and create this swirl of the drama you want,

the atmosphere, setting the scene, the costumes. You know, you've already got your music, so when you do the... I just know that sometimes when i've had that side of what i do and then it's got this juxtaposition of something very mundane and i don't know the thing that always pops into my head is a soft play just i feel like in a soft play it's like all of my character and personality has just been stripped from me and i just exist to try and spot where they are and keep an eye on some shoes and um yeah that's kind of it yeah but sometimes in that I think with early parenthood I struggled with that sort of thing

quite a lot because you realize you're sort of part of this whole I don't know club that's been going on for ages of course of just being a parent of a small person but you're just like oh but how what's what's my version of this and there isn't really one no you just have to sit on the plastic seats and yeah check they haven't you know banged into another kid and and keep an eye on their shoes yeah yeah yeah that um I mean I'm definitely this is the first time I've released an album whilst having whilst being a mum and um I think I try to sort of like be present in each thing I'm doing because I feel like it takes very different parts of me to be it's sort of like um having a split personality I'm just like the music one you know I go into that zone and then it's that transitional

time between the two sometimes you don't have much time to transition and I think that's when you feel a bit discombobulated or like really bored yeah you know and it is boring um I think I've been reading a really interesting book called um Hunt Gather Parent all about a woman who was finding it really boring and difficult um to parent in the western way where they have child-centric activities and, like, the parents are just, like, you know, slaves to these children, where you just, like, provide snacks and take them to playdates and do things. Exactly. You're right, that is a very Western thing, isn't it?

It is a bit, because I think what, you know, she then decided to spend a year with her three-year-old with three different indigenous cultures. Oh, wow. So she went to Mayans and I can't remember the other two but um but she you know her whole book is about they don't really do that in those cultures they if if a child is you know wants to play or do something they'll be like make tortilla with me or like you know the other day I'm like Delphi's friends around I'm just like they just

love like having grown up things. So I was like, okay, so we're going to rub all the cupboards with our cloths. And they were like getting the tea towels out and like shining up the cupboards. I was like, I feel like I'm in Annie or something, sorry. My child is not a slave. But it was just so much more easy for me to be there and just, you know, and then they run in the garden go on the trampoline and I was I obviously I go to the park with Delphi and do all those birthday parties and stuff but

I've since reading that I felt a bit bit less pressure to go and they're like don't do activities that you wouldn't that you would normally hate doing yeah just for the sake of because kids just love to be with you and they love smart yeah they love to be in their little tribe you know of course have play dates and stuff but I generally try to do things that I would at least find a quarter you know 25% interesting or there's something for me there because I do feel like you said there's just um you know they don't want to I think she was describing it as like they're her the the kids that she saw as part of this family so they have five kids the mum kind of treats it like they're

like on a baseball team together everyone's got their role everyone can contribute in some way and no one ever stands on the side that's not involved in what's happening um and to utilize toddlers love of helping like can i do that can i pick that can i help you hang the washing out i want to stir the thing i want to crack the egg like yeah he's always asking those things so i i try to kind of involve her as much as i can and it has alleviated some of that like deathly boredom of yeah and it makes you feel like your personality as a parent can come out as well i think it sounds like you've kind of reached reached that quicker than it took me I think um and I think also how do you find the actual thing of are you good at giving yourself permission to actually go off and

do what you need to do for your work and give it the space have you found that came quite naturally too yeah I've been really lucky with my management because my manager um both my managers have little kids and they really understand like they know when half term's happening because they have to deal with that too and they've been very helpful in like putting the tour you know before big holidays especially because um I'm the parent that works freelance you know and the other parent has a nine-to-five job. So if there's ever any holidays, it's up to me to be there. And so they're really helpful with that.

So it's not, it's felt like it's pretty full on, but my work hours are within when Delphi's at school. And then I am quite good on some days just saying you know I need a morning to myself like I need to do the washing and I need to I don't know do like boring admin stuff and go and buy her new socks or like I need to do a food shop yeah it's just like when do you find the time to do all this stuff and that's not even like god I really would like to go and get a manicure or you know or a mani pedi or something it's been months but um but no I think when I do have the time to myself instead of I think instead of trying to like see loads of people and do loads

of things I actually just get in my bed and will read a book or just sit with a cat for like an hour or two. That sounds nice. And that is like absolutely just sorts me out. I keep going for the whole week. Have you done any gigs yet? Have you done, you have? Yeah, we did a tour. It was quite small, but I think last,

sort of last summer, Christine and the Queens did a Meltdown festival and we played the South Bank and then a few things around that. And that was quite full on because it was me just on my own with a lot of contemporary dance and a big mirror that I was dancing into. It's very David Bowie-esque. I was holding a lot of the show on my own

and I found that physically really overwhelming I got quite dizzy and I had some weird symptoms and I think it was stress related depleted maybe very depleted yeah so this time you're always learning but I was just like I need more musicians and a bit more support um so I've made it that way for this show and yeah you're learning aren't you what you're learning on you what you're capable of and what you're how much energy you've got for things and I think I over yeah I overshot the mark a bit yeah because it is a new thing and sometimes you're sort of stepping back into yourself and thinking actually no that doesn't quite work in the same way as it did before yeah

or it doesn't make me happy in the same way it did totally but um when you're talking about your how it's made you reflect on a childhood when were you always someone do you have lots of memories of sort of seeking these this sort of world to create these you know the storytelling and the fantasy yeah is that something you can remember from when you were I suppose when you were in like single digits definitely I feel like I remember I mean I don't know about single yeah single digits because as a little girl I was obsessed with being outside in nature and I had little microscope and glass slides of leaves and butterfly wings and I was part of the ecology club like then as

I grew a bit older my um my parents divorced and my godfather who lived across the road had a friend that had a horse who like was just in a field and he paid for me like he paid the livery of the horse for two years um and I looked after this horse and it just it was so healing for me just like I would ride bareback because I was you know au naturel didn't want to do any like dressage stuff or whatever and we just go into the woods and I just ride the horse like for an hour after school with my walkman on so how were you then this is sort of like in your like 11 yeah 12 oh you're so open to all of that then as well aren't you yeah the rain you're so romantic yeah so romantic like seeing yourself like where you're headed yeah yeah yeah and the aspirations and the dreams and I was in suburbia

and then I just go out and just like this probably quite small suburban woodland that if I looked at it to me I was like on the savannas of Wyoming or something I really really relate to that you're really the heroine in the story yeah yeah little misunderstood and wild exactly yeah I think you know and I do think kids have that wild spirit and if it's yeah it's allowed to advent you know venture out um and having that time on my own I mean my mum was obviously like very very like not hands-on in the way that parents are now I was out for hours on my own every night and before school I'd go to the horse on my own but she was probably so happy because you had a thing that took you out the house gave you a place to go absorbed you you know that that's kind of what you're hoping for for your kids a little bit really that they've

got somewhere that a thing that gives them that headspace and makes them feel happy. And a responsibility for another being. Yes. I was responsible for this big animal and we had, we developed this amazing connection. But yeah, I was thinking today, like if Delphi was riding horses around a woodland, we didn't have mobile phones in those days. Just gone for like three hours and then just trust she comes home. Like get, you know, knocked off by a branch or something. It's so amazing, isn't it, how our thought, how the paranoia we have nowadays is so much higher.

Oh, it's crazy. It's really different. It is. That would never happen. No, I remember I was talking to someone once, her daughter had just passed her driving test and was driving and so I was following her on Life360 for where she went. I was thinking, really?

Like, don't you? Do you need to do that? Like, when's the bit where you cut the apron strings, really? You know, there's got to be, I think the way that we're encouraged to police everything and be aware of everything is maybe not always the best, but then I guess, you know, I don't want to be the one that says that and then it's like, well, if you'd been following where they were,

they wouldn't have been knocked off their horse, would they? Exactly. Whoops. I think there's something about just like the trust you build with your child and instilling in them like a feeling that they that they're not there for you they're not there to abate your anxiety they're there to develop

confidence and to go out into the world and to not be yours anymore you know they'll always be yours but you know it's that thing of like i want you to be a confident individual that feels brave and strong enough to deal with situations and things and I think I've yeah maybe because I was given that I've I feel like maybe I I do that with Delphi maybe even too much like I'm quite like just go off and do your thing you know it's instinct isn't it because that's your your person and you get to know them so inside out and she's very like that anyway she's quite just let me out you know she's not interested she checks back on me occasionally but she'll be like miles away in the park and and I you know for me that I'm trying to sort of practice that thing of not being too anxious about it I was reading as well you were talking about when you were little and you felt like you had certain like more masculine like character like behavior and people it was

supposedly yes i know i'm quoting how you'd phrased it but it's not how i would see it yeah um and yeah exactly supposedly and it was like the effort was to sort of try and diminish these things and i think it's i'm so glad that we don't seem to approach raising daughters in that way anymore. Exactly, yeah, yeah. It's a healthier place to be. Yeah, and I think it's definitely not the same as it used to be, but are there aspects of your childhood

that you are actively trying to incorporate do you think i think um i didn't realize till recently that my dad's from pakistan and my mum's english and we spent several summers there for like six weeks at a time and um and when delphi was when we were living in la her first nursery school was a mexican abuela like a grandmother with like big boobs and big coat you know big chicken wings cuddly arms and then her daughter who was in her 30s and her daughter who was 16 who was doing like her mbq or whatever in child care and so delphi was part of this like mexican intergenerational like trilogy of women and i think recently i've realized that there's a bit of a like I'm realizing that that's so important for Delphi is um this sort of cross-cultural experience that I

had I'm not quite sure how to provide that for her because a lot of my Pakistani family aren't there or they've passed away so I don't really have a connection to there anymore but as a kid sort of going to this really hot country um with all the smells of like spices and rose and jasmine and sewage and sweat and like dust and rabid dogs it was like so crazy yeah it was such a sensory overload but how were you when you were going there from a baby up till like nine or ten probably um but the you'd be sort of delivered into the arms and bosoms of like 12 cousins and aunties yeah who would whisk me away and like just kiss me all over and put makeup on me and henna on my hands and dress me in silk cheval camises and gold

jewelry and they'd take me to the market and you could get chicks that were like every different colour of the rainbow that had been like dip dyed you have like a rainbow cage of chicks and just you know I had a pet goat when I was there that they then sacrificed and made a curry out of and there's like it was such a I don't know it was like such a um a mythical place to me that's got a fed in massively into how you feel about your where you create what bat for lashes is exactly that world because it's high drama yeah it's so dramatic but it's also all the senses it's all and it's and it's romantic like when you're small the idea of having like another world that you can

go to and everything is like intense and magical and you know when you're saying about the henna and the sounds and the smells and the family and then you go back to much more normal is it suburban yeah where your friends aren't that's not the experience that's not what they do yeah it's a different sociological construct that's such a rich idea yeah to just do that there's another version of me that i don't yeah i get to inhabit sometimes oh that's lovely and the and the sort of like the hotness i would describe of their emotions was like very on their slate you know when we arrive or leave just everyone in tears and like my cheeks had bruises on from being squeezed so hard by like my hand like beauty I love you so much you know like kind of like and Delphi's got this I call it

like um love aggression oh yeah well you're she just pinches me and like mommy you know like her face shakes yeah they like shake yeah and I feel like that love aggression sort of doesn't die out in their culture it's like fully fully there in like people in the you know older years and um and so I have noticed that I really want that for her and I don't and I think we got a bit of that living in LA with the Mexican culture because they you know there's like they have parties all the time and barbecues all the kids up at 11 o'clock like running around music and they're very cuddly and you know so um so I and I really liked the combination of this sort of like wistful English stiff upper lip kind of reading Mallory Towers and Anne of Green Gables side of me and then it's like kind of mythological intense um and with all the religion and the storytelling of that you know like very sort of like strange a whole other culture religious

culture yeah um i i like how that's combined in me to like you say creatively i think that's really helped yeah that's very rich that experience but I think when you have a child you're looking at the things that have made you who you are and then you think well I've I'm in a happy spot now with how I feel about being your parent so how what do you need that will give you the same sense of I want you to help you find your happy thing too yes and it's quite like it's like I have to constantly remind myself that things that work for me, those life experiences, they don't need to be replicated, they will have their own version of everything

and that will be separate to me. Yeah, because it doesn't have to be the same thing that you provide them, but it's just you're learning about what they need. And I think maybe Delphuffy going to Australia and saying, put your phone away, mate. I think she got a really different cultural experience. They live on the beach, like it's sunny, they were naked all the time, you know, and we are planning to spend a bit more time there every year.

I think she'll get a different kind of thing, but she's got that exotic family that live over there that she just absolutely loves it's pretty glamorous as well it's pretty glamorous as a thing to have that as a thing you do as well yeah yeah so that's her version i suppose but i put her in forest school i'll get her on a horse at some point you know i think the uh the nature injection a local ecology club for hopefully Hopefully. She'll be like, mum. I was in something called the Woodcroft Folk. Did you ever hear of that?

No, it sounds very, like, 70s hippie. It was so 70s hippie. That was very, like, out in nature, hiking. Yeah, lovely. I did really like that sort of thing. And I like the fact that it's quite quirky as well. I very rarely meet a fellow ex-Woodcroft folk. Woodcroft folk kin. Yeah, exactly. quite quirky as well i very rarely meet a fellow ex woodcraft woodcraft folk kid yeah exactly do you miss nature or are you like how do you do you like being in the city um yeah i'm born and

bred londoner so just makes sense for me this is come on there's greenery out there yeah richard would have taken the kit i think we would have moved to the countryside if I hadn't been such a city girl. I've always made it very clear that I won't leave London. Yeah. And I think it's good that one of us just really knows. One of us just gets our way, yeah. Yeah, completely. Well, I said he's welcome to go to the countryside.

I just will not be going. Won't come with him. Yeah, I just won't be there. But then my mum lives, like, seven minutes down the road. I mean, not be going. Won't come with him. Yeah, I just won't be there. But then my mum lives like seven minutes down the road. I mean, that's everything. My eldest boy's moved in there now too. So yeah, he lives with his grandma, which is very sweet. What? That is so nice.

Yeah, and so it's all, my family live here. That's very important. My brother's here, my sister's here. Yeah. So for me, this is that. And if they weren't all here, it would be different. Definitely. Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, I do sometimes think kids make so much sense in nature. So for me, this is that. And if they weren't all here, it would be different. Definitely. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I do sometimes think kids make so much sense in nature. So I do sometimes feel like I've been a bit mean with that, really. I want to know, I was kind of hoping you might bring your tarot cards with you. I just don't know much about tarot. Oh, I wish I had. It sounds incredible. I'm reading. Yeah, maybe another time.

Another time, yeah. Well, they're not based on the tarot that oracle there's a difference between tarot and oracle but tarot is sort of the traditional pack with all the suits and the major arcana cards and stuff so that holds a very special mystery to it that's something you grew up with or is this something you just got into later no i did grow up with that i mean i was obsessed with like practical magic and you know all the sort of witchy stuff when I was younger and I meditated or like I tried to connect with Kirk Bane's spirit and stuff oh yeah so I felt like yeah one or the other yeah out the window oh yeah so um I quickly yeah I was into like the incense and the tarot cards as early as I could be and over the years I've I feel like

I've become quite a good tarot reader only because tarot reading is so much about intuiting the person and then seeing a story within the within the cards and their relationship to each other it's it's really about it it's quite a mystical process but I feel like if you're good at it you can just like you can just um clarify something for the person that they know inside themselves but they're not quite getting it reflected back yeah that makes a lot but I do think that what comes up sometimes is shockingly on point and and people that I've given readings to who I've never met before are just like blown away so I do believe there's some sort of universal intelligence at

work but um but the oracle cards are sort of a matriarchal deck and they're all based on mythical archetypes and characters of my own making but they the meanings and the sort of like descriptions and the methods and rituals behind them all are based a lot on methods that i've used over the years for my creativity and for my sort of like delving deeper into myself and removing blocks or like healing my inner child or you know um there's a lot about honoring like metamorphosis and change and cycles in life and the creative cycle and how things die and are reborn and yeah um so yeah it covers quite a spectrum there's 40 cards for the year that i had delphi and i illustrated it all and wrote the guidebook um yeah and i feel like it's this nice

thing that's just gone out into the world it's doing its own lovely i think it's really lovely i love all that and everything comes from the same place with you so you're it's all part of the same world are you someone that makes plans have you got plans for what you do after this album thing yeah oh really that's cool so how far in the future do you go well i'm really excited because i've wanted to do i've wanted to make do a play for a long time. And I think this novella that I've written, I'm going to transform into a play. And I think September I can start research and development, which makes me so excited. That is exciting.

You get choreographers, set designers, anyone that you think is amazing to come and spend a week with you, hashing out ideas and workshopping stuff that's incredible it's like that's heaven on earth to me so I'm so excited because I feel like I couldn't have really done it before this and I've reached like a mature enough age to step into that sort of like theatre director or that kind of role yeah and um and yeah I think it takes a minute to get to something like that so it's quite exciting so I feel like that's something I'd like to start after this tour

it feels like all your creative juices are really like pumping yeah in a good really good way yeah a really good way yeah it's got to go into something I mean I'd probably I'd like to have more kids but I'm probably getting on a bit for that, so it probably just has to go into, like, you know that thing when they're three and you're like, I need to do it again. Yeah, nature's quite wily. Wily.

Because you start off and you're like... Never again. Don't even ask me. And then they get to, like, for me it was always, like, two, two and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and actually with my youngest,

I had to really kind of I was very aware of it like no just stop what are you gonna do like it's gonna it's got to finish at some point yeah you know and that's you know not even thinking about if you'll be lucky enough to have another baby but just like oh stop it you know I was kind of almost finding it a bit like oh my brain's so predictable yeah there's like a hormonal manipulation yeah absolutely has designed perfectly to make you feel like you're missing something and sometimes kids as well at that age start saying oh yeah i want a baby or they say baby went oh can we have one of those babies and we buy this for our baby and i'm talking about was delphi said to me the other

day mommy when i get older you can go back in my tummy and then you can be my baby. Oh, wow. I was like, I don't know if that works like that. Might be a bit painful, but you can have a baby. So I'm going to have a baby. So I think like she is expressing it in that way, which is really interesting. Well, there's a lot in your music, I think, that talks about this. You say like the spiral of it all is sort of continuing.

I think in Dream of Delphi, it almost like was hypnotizing me there the sound of it i kept seeing like a circle just going around and around it's like the babushka dolls you know like the doll within the doll yes yeah i feel like that's you know because she that whole that fact of when delphi was in my tummy she's already got the eggs i know potential granddaughters in my tummy i just find find that so... That is wild, isn't it? Wild, yeah. Yeah.

Nature's pretty clever with all that stuff. Yeah. And I think your music's beautiful and I love this album. Thank you. So congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, fun stuff.

It's gorgeous. Can't wait to see it live and... Yeah. Yeah, explore it more. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. explore it more thank you so much thank you gorgeous natasha talking about her beautiful album dream of delphi i mentioned during our chat there that i thought some of her lyrics i could just quote them and they would

tell the story in themselves because they're so beautifully put. And there's a song called Letter to My Daughter. And I just thought I'll read you the lyrics because they're so pretty. Your life and echo, my darling, of all before. Your life and echo, my darling, of all to come. And yes, you're a song. Isn't that lovely? I hope my kids know that they're songs too what a song it reminded me a little bit of the calise song acapella that's a very beautiful song about how having her child kind of put music in the world it's a lovely way to articulate an emotion i think and um yeah such a pleasure to talk to natasha what a lovely lovely woman woman and um wish her all the best with the new record I can't wait to come and see it live I bet it'll be absolutely gorgeous and um yeah it'd be

really good fun so uh what am I gonna do now oh I guess I better wake some more people up it's like half past nine in the morning here on Sunday but I've only got um 50% of the children awake I've got uh an eight-year-old who really loves sleeping in I mean don't get me wrong so do I and then obviously the teenager has now hit that that bit as well so there's always this bit in the morning where it's kind of like just me and my 12 year old's quite an early riser and the little one so I've just been downstairs and I'm thinking should I wake them the other ones what do you reckon or do I let them sleep then bedtimes get all kind of disjointed don't they yeah I think I know what to do anyway and I better pack for a gig I haven't done a full band live show in oh it's got to be about a month actually I think we did our last one at the end of

the tour um and I feel like I need to blow some cobwebs off. It's funny, you know, when you're gigging, I don't know, a couple of times a week, you get so in the rhythm of it, but it only takes a couple of weeks for you to start feeling like, oh, what's that again? So, and because Richard and Kieran, who plays keyboards, are way on tour with the feeling, I've got a couple of chaps, one of which has done the gig before and one of which hasn't. So that adds an extra layer as well of kind of, I better be really sure of what I'm doing

because they will be doing it for the first time. Wish me luck. But it should be fun, actually. I'm actually playing this thing called the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, which feels a little bit incongruous, but I'm just hoping that the organisers and the people that come to watch do understand that I'm not specifically a jazz act. Although I guess actually, if we play things like a little bit like, we could just say, and that's jazz. So maybe if there's going to be a gig where you've got a

couple of people who don't know the music as well as the rest of us then that's a jazz is the time we could just pretend we're kind of like deconstructing and breaking it down and taking it somewhere else nice that's no disrespect to jazz players by the way i do understand that there is an actual form to that but just in context of my own music wonky wonky pop could be maybe the jazz version of things i tell you what next week i'll report back how that how that plan went um listen have a really good week i hope the sun is shining wherever you are and uh yeah thank you so much for listening thank you to claire jones for producing to ella may for the beautiful artwork to richard for editing and i have another lovely guest for you next week see you soon On each step with Peloton, from their pop runs to walk and talks,

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