She knows it "sounds ridiculous," but when Natasha Khan (aka Bat for Lashes) began reinterpreting old Moroccan and Iranian songs with her producer Dan Carey and the UK-based psychedelic outfit TOY, she felt like she was "channeling some sort of ancestral feelings about witches." She's not fully clear on what came over her; in interviews, she makes the process sound like an exorcism. Each song was captured in one take, and the whole album recorded in a daylong session. Her lyrics are collaged-together English translations of the songs' source material, which mostly concern seduction and infatuation. After a certain point, her singing becomes wailing. Her screams are pained and, to borrow Khan's word, "orgasmic." When it came time to name the project, she shrugged and told Carey, "It’s Sexwitch, innit?"
The material for the album was unearthed during a fruitful crate-digging trip, when Khan and Carey obsessed over some rare psychedelic tracks from other countries. They found two songs from Iran: "Ghoroobaa Ghashangan" (on the Light in the Attic comp Zendooni) and "Helelyos" (a song by Iranian singer Zia that's appeared on several Iranian pre-revolutionary pop compilations). Two songs are featured on the Raw 45s of Morocco comp: "Ha Howa Ha Howa" and "Kassidat El Hakka". The original version of "Lam Plearn Kiew Bao" is from Thailand and can be found on a Soundway comp. These songs' messages of liberation and passion are well suited to Khan's voice, especially at its most intense.
Compared to The Haunted Man, Khan's untethered presence on Sexwitch is a departure. Her Bat for Lashes work foregrounds structure and melody, but here she takes key phrases and molds them, repeating and inverting them. When necessary, she makes her voice percussive, especially when she emphasizes the repeated words "my dark girls" on "Helelyos". Khan's performances are equal parts wild and controlled, and TOY have no trouble nailing these songs. They're funky on "Ghoroobaa Ghashangan" and their percussion work on "Kassidat El Hakka" is satisfyingly heavy. To Carey's credit, this album sounds great, too.
But since every song on Sexwitch is a cover, it begs the question: What do Sexwitch's versions add? Occasionally, they feel overlong. Repetition is key to this music, but after several cycles, tracks begin to plod, broken up only by Khan's vocal work. The Sexwitch interpretations lose vital elements from the originals like horns, organs, and bells.
The most successful cover is arguably the closer: Skip Spence's "War in Peace". It's an excellent choice, and it offers Sexwitch the opportunity to simmer, jam, and gradually ramp back up. "War in peace," Khan sings, adding, "What a funny combination." The song is proof that they can thrive in the sweet spot between unchained freewheeling psychedelia and something more regimented and precise like "All Your Gold". But then again, why tame a band that's hell-bent on staying untamed?
