Bat for Lashes

Natasha Khan has an English mother and a Pakistani father Pakistani, a former professional squash player (and her uncle is the ex-world squash champion Jahangir Khan). After her parents split, Natasha was raised in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, playing piano from an early age. She went on to study music and visual arts at the University of Brighton and started writing music in earnest, adopting the stage name Bat for Lashes with a fluid band of supporting musicians. The darkly dreamy track What's A Girl To Do put her on the map and debut album Fur And Gold in 2007 - a seductive mix of hypnotic songs and insistent electronica - was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. It was an achievement repeated by its ambitious 2009 follow-up Two Suns, a mystical concept record built around a battle of wills between Natasha and her blonde femme fatale alter-ego Pearl and included - on The Big Sleep - a duet with singing legend Scott Walker.