The Lamp Beneath the Covers: Bat for Lashes at Bowery Ballroom

I’ve always had a hunch that girls have richer imaginative lives than boys. When I was eight, it was all guns and explosions and baseball. But girls develop sexually sooner, and that makes all the difference.   Us boys are all heroes in our fantasies, but in girls' dreams girls seem to play tragic heroes from beyond the looking glass: frightened child-messiahs, treacherous monarchs, lecherous wizards.   And I didn’t pull those out of thin air. Natasha Khan did; she’s the principle songwriter and high priestess of [Bat for Lashes].   The Bjork/Kate Bush/Stevie Nicks comparisons are inevitable and deserved (I love all those women), but not just because of Khan’s sumptuous voice or her thundering, orchestral arrangements. In fact, like those other women, women of such raw talent and intensity that they seem to be forces of nature, the theatrical live show can tread dangerously close to camp. But the melodies disarm you, and the whole act dwells squarely in that sweet spot before theatricality becomes absurdity.   Whether or not these songs were really composed at a Harry Potter-themed slumber party is unclear. But here were four young women—the median age, 20, I would suspect—of such self-possession and sincerity that they conveyed without pretension the Wiccan implications of their bejeweled headbands and vintage bridesmaid dresses. It’s always great to see a band so seamlessly actualized, like four limbs of a single body.   Every song required an instrumental reconfiguration, and the easy choreography of the switching became its own delightful entertainment. Khan and her backup band all played keyboards, hand percussion, snare and bass drums; one also played viola, another a violin (Abi Fry, also of British Sea Power), the third, a flute. Each player would contribute her own simple phrase, so that the whole was composed of way more than the sum of the parts. For many songs the girls stomped their feet and clapped, their hands above their heads like Flamenco dancers.   Thanks are due to Khan and her mysterious coterie for a glimpse, sometimes whimsical, sometimes harrowing, at what girls conjure underneath the covers when the flashlight flickers.