{"id":690,"date":"2015-10-01T13:15:35","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T12:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=690"},"modified":"2015-10-25T10:47:44","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T10:47:44","slug":"sexwitch-london-xoyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=690","title":{"rendered":"SEXWITCH \u2013 London, XOYO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan and Toy join forces to tackle Persian psych-funk and Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

SEXWITCH<\/span><\/strong>
\nLondon XOYO 29\/09\/15<\/p>\n

\"014\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a full house tonight in this fashionably dingy basement venue, the crowd awaiting a show from the unique collaboration that is Bat For Lashes driving force, Natasha Khan, record label owner\/producer Dan Carey and psych-musical polymaths Toy.\u00a0 With only one live appearance to date as surprise guests at the Green Man Festival, it\u2019s intriguing to hear what is essentially a carefully curated set of covers\u00a0<\/span>(albeit given an illuminating transfiguration in the studio environs) given the live treatment.<\/p>\n

The band start with album opener \u2018Ghoroobaa Ghashangan\u2019 and the sense of dark forboding that underpins the recorded material is immediately present \u00a0\u2013 \u201cOur love has passed away, too disentangled to exist\u2026\u201d. The slinkiness of the bass-centric groove works to provide a solid rhythmic platform for Khan to tune into the occasion.\u00a0 The stage is bathed in a crepuscular blue, red and purple light and gives the impression that this is more of a gothic twilight ceremony than just a gig going on here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Ha Howa Ha Howa\u2019 takes the music further down the rabbit hole into a musical chasm of the band\u2019s making.\u00a0 A key factor in this being Dan Carey\u2019s use of the Swarmathon, a strange wooden encased electronic instrument that Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) once described as \u201ca spider web of cables, soldering and madness\u201d.\u00a0 It seems to be the backbone for most of their tunes with a trademark “dual notes interweaving” sound.\u00a0 This alongside the band\u2019s capability to supply a motorik–<\/b>like drive,\u00a0provides Khan with the perfect backdrop to let loose with her voice, often restrained within her more famous material.\u00a0 Khan has described the process of recording vocals for the SEXWITCH project as “like a voodoo exorcism” and it certainly seems that some kind of possession of her body and soul has taken place.\u00a0 In contrast, between songs, Khan is all smiles laughing to herself and telling the audience \u201cI need to calm down!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Helelyos\u2019 continues to entrance both singer and crowd; the stage lights\u00a0 fusing with the performance and Khan\u2019s evoking of the<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>incantational<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>aspects of the lyrics, transforming Zia\u2019s original (as found on Finders Keepers\u2019 Persian psych-funk compilation Pomegranates<\/em>) into a journey through the heart of darkness, ambiguous and all the more unsettling for it. A cover of Skip Spence\u2019s \u2018War In Peace\u2019 followed by an airing of the pre-album collaboration that started it all \u2018Aroos Khanom\u2019 (The Bride) and the vocals continue to become impassioned and tumultuous \u00a0\u2013 \u201cNow my heart is beating in my chest, no one to confide in!\u201d \u2013 the Swarmathon swells and the band keep their heads whilst the sonics continue to whirl through the night.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Kassidat El Hakka\u2019 (roughly translated from the Moroccan source as \u2018the Poem Of The Truth\u2019) is central to the SEXWITCH sound and it\u2019s no surprise that they finish the set with it. It\u2019s a pulsing, relentless spine-chiller that leads Khan to shake and scream before appearing to be overpowered by the sledgehammer nature of the cacophony being created behind her. Overall, it\u2019s an incredibly interesting diversion for all involved \u00a0\u2013 here\u2019s hoping that there\u2019s more to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marc Le Breton<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

You can stream the album here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bat For Lashes’ Natasha Khan and Toy join forces to tackle Persian psych-funk and Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence SEXWITCH London XOYO 29\/09\/15 It\u2019s a full house tonight in this fashionably dingy basement venue, the crowd awaiting a show from the unique collaboration that is Bat For Lashes driving force, Natasha Khan, record label owner\/producer Dan Carey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[140,142,139,141],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-bat-for-lashes","tag-dan-carey","tag-sexwitch","tag-toy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":-2,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}