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Track Listings
| 1. Glass |
| 2. Sleep Alone |
| 3. Moon and Moon |
| 4. Daniel |
| 5. Peace Of Mind |
| 6. Siren Song |
| 7. Pearl's Dream |
| 8. Good Love |
| 9. Two Planets |
| 10. Travelling Woman |
| 11. The Big Sleep |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Love, and the loss of love, consumes every second of Two Suns, the second album from Brighton-based Natasha Khan’s Bat For Lashes. But if you’re looking for anything as prosaic as a straightforward love song, you won’t find it here: Two Suns is every bit as heady, dramatic and fanciful as its predecessor Fur And Gold, its narratives of romance and heartbreak elevated into tales of knights in crystal armour, sailors lost at sea, and planets held in orbit; rich with imagery, and with sonic ambition to match. Kate Bush remains the obvious antecedent: Khan’s melodramatic vocals are a close ringer, and even relatively sparse moments like "Moon And Moon" are presented with grand, baroque arrangements of piano and strings, rich with detail. But such quasi-medieval textures are balanced out by neat excursions into electronic pop, best experienced on "Pearl’s Dream", noir-ish disco swathed in icy synthesisers. Finally, there’s an unexpected cameo on "The Big Sleep", a gothic epilogue that sees Scott Walker duet with Khan in his high, operatic quaver. A big step forwards from Bat For Lashes’ debut, and a suggestion of good things to come. ––Louis Pattison
Product Description
Pristine 2009 album! Exotic pop 'n' tribal beats from celestial Brighton songstress Natasha Khan. Cameos by Scott Walker and members of Yeasayer. Includes "Daniel".
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This album is now available on Last FM at the moment and I urge you to go there and listen to it. To my mind, its a clear evolution from Fur and Gold - the primitive, tribal influences are still there, but the sound is more dancey, more electronic - it feels very early 1980s synth. However, whilst this early Eurythmics / Depeche Mode synth sounds seems to be all the rage, the lyrics are outstanding as ever from Natasha Khan, and, above all, the album seems to be permeated by a very zen, calm, perhaps even isolated, feeling. I understand from hearing and reading interviews about Two Suns that a lot of it was produced as Bat for Lashes travelled around on tour, and whereas Fur and Gold seemed to conjure up mental images of knights and maidens and Camelot, this album has a strong feeling about the mid West USA about it - National Parks, Canyons, wild nature.
In short - its as beautiful and haunting as you would expect from this wonderful artist. I urge you to catch her on tour - I was fortunate to see her at the secret show at the Wedgewood Rooms in Southsea recently and it was a tour de force. 10/10!
In short - its as beautiful and haunting as you would expect from this wonderful artist. I urge you to catch her on tour - I was fortunate to see her at the secret show at the Wedgewood Rooms in Southsea recently and it was a tour de force. 10/10!
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's like climbing a long velvet rope sewn with golden charms and jewels. That description sums up the experience of listening to Bat For Lashes (aka Natasha Khan), even in her lesser songs. And fortunately "Two Suns" doesn't really have any lesser songs -- just a steady stream of painfully exquisite, crystalline pop that focus on the feeling of love that's gone.
"In the street's broadways I seek... him whom my soul loveth," she sings softly in the introductory song, before switching to a mix of tribal drums and wafting keyboard. .
After that, she spreads out into a string of love songs -- in fact, this entire album is pretty heavy on those. Most are bittersweet descriptions of an affair falling apart ("I drove past true love once, in a dream/Like a house that caught fire, it burned and flamed"), but there are some beautifully idealistic moments as well.
Along the way, Khan dabbles in some stompy synthy dance, a hymnlike freak-folk ballad backed by a choir, and the warmly off-kilter "Traveling Woman," and a finale that evokes old wooden stages, toy pianos and an old theatre being shut down ("No more spotlights/coming down from heaven... and already my voice is fading/goodbye, my dears/and into the big city...").
Fortunately she doesn't abandon her signature sound, which is that of an old fantasy story mutating into a beautiful, slightly wicked dream -- swirling pop, haunting piano ballads, the soaring and unnerving echoes of "Siren" and its synth-studded companion "Pearl's Song," ethereal melodies swathed in shimmering keyboard, and the exotic sweet danciness of "Two Planets." But the absolute peak of the whole thing has to be "Daniel," an catchily effervescent ode to a man with a "flame in his heart."
One of the biggest questions that comes to mind when listening to "Two Suns" is -- why is the music industry flooded with no-talent pop hacks, when such exquisitely vibrant music is right there for the listening? It's an album with stunning vocals and instrumentation, and lyrics that evoke images of forests on fire, magicians, crystal cities, and an alter ego Khan calls Pearl (who is either a femme fatale or a fantasy traveler).
Khan's music is, if possible, even more beautiful than before, mainly because she's managed to polish the instrumentals even further. In most songs she weaves together a shimmering wall of hauntingly silky keyboard with drums, violins, sharp beats and painfully pretty piano, but sometimes she also pares it down to the bare essentials ("Peace of Mind").
But Khan's voice is one of the loveliest things in this album -- she can sing powerfully or wistfully, and she even shows that she can manage a song almost a capella ("Peace of Mind" again). Her songwriting is even better: she can conjure powerful emotions with vivid swathes of words ("I drove past true love once, in a dream/Like a house that caught fire, it burned and flamed"). It's almost sensual.
"Two Suns" is a lush, lovely album that shows how much Natasha Khan's music has grown in the last year, and reminds you of the dark, beautiful places just out of reach.
"In the street's broadways I seek... him whom my soul loveth," she sings softly in the introductory song, before switching to a mix of tribal drums and wafting keyboard. .
After that, she spreads out into a string of love songs -- in fact, this entire album is pretty heavy on those. Most are bittersweet descriptions of an affair falling apart ("I drove past true love once, in a dream/Like a house that caught fire, it burned and flamed"), but there are some beautifully idealistic moments as well.
Along the way, Khan dabbles in some stompy synthy dance, a hymnlike freak-folk ballad backed by a choir, and the warmly off-kilter "Traveling Woman," and a finale that evokes old wooden stages, toy pianos and an old theatre being shut down ("No more spotlights/coming down from heaven... and already my voice is fading/goodbye, my dears/and into the big city...").
Fortunately she doesn't abandon her signature sound, which is that of an old fantasy story mutating into a beautiful, slightly wicked dream -- swirling pop, haunting piano ballads, the soaring and unnerving echoes of "Siren" and its synth-studded companion "Pearl's Song," ethereal melodies swathed in shimmering keyboard, and the exotic sweet danciness of "Two Planets." But the absolute peak of the whole thing has to be "Daniel," an catchily effervescent ode to a man with a "flame in his heart."
One of the biggest questions that comes to mind when listening to "Two Suns" is -- why is the music industry flooded with no-talent pop hacks, when such exquisitely vibrant music is right there for the listening? It's an album with stunning vocals and instrumentation, and lyrics that evoke images of forests on fire, magicians, crystal cities, and an alter ego Khan calls Pearl (who is either a femme fatale or a fantasy traveler).
Khan's music is, if possible, even more beautiful than before, mainly because she's managed to polish the instrumentals even further. In most songs she weaves together a shimmering wall of hauntingly silky keyboard with drums, violins, sharp beats and painfully pretty piano, but sometimes she also pares it down to the bare essentials ("Peace of Mind").
But Khan's voice is one of the loveliest things in this album -- she can sing powerfully or wistfully, and she even shows that she can manage a song almost a capella ("Peace of Mind" again). Her songwriting is even better: she can conjure powerful emotions with vivid swathes of words ("I drove past true love once, in a dream/Like a house that caught fire, it burned and flamed"). It's almost sensual.
"Two Suns" is a lush, lovely album that shows how much Natasha Khan's music has grown in the last year, and reminds you of the dark, beautiful places just out of reach.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
In the fifties, she would iron, and clean, she would vaccum the house and darn socks, work idly round the house, gaze into the clouds and see the shape of her man. Him, stoic, hard, but soft, would fight the wars of the world outside, would drive the Buick to the office, smoke at his desk and calculate the profit gearing of the tea imports, sit and drink with the boys, play the role of the man, wishing that he was home, deep in his cocoon with her, the Juliet to his Romeo, as the world slowly killed them with dinner sets and social conventions.
This is what "Two Suns" sounds like. Two objects in orbit of each other, two massive balls of fire that can give or take life, burn or warm : two hearts, two objects of huge potential. In the rear view mirror of our lives, the two suns in the sunset - the setting white dwarf, the other the mushroom cloud of our great advances.
"Two Suns". Like the debut, it sounds like to me, the inarticulate speech of the heart, the rolling waves, the feeling beyond language, where fragments of lyric become a glimpse into another world, where percussion and punctuation thunder loving heartbeats, where souls move beyond the mundane to so much more than we ever thought.
This record elevates, transports, in the blink of an eye, a flash of the music, the whole world goes away, and you are there, dancing to a silent drum, gazing at the clouds, thinking of your loved one, the reason why we do all this, and hearing the voice of purpose in your head : This is why we do all this stuff, why we endure the indignities of work slavery and tax. Where souls meet, where lips touch, where love conquers all things. This record is not just music : the representation, the capturing in musical form of a two hearted dream, where we, us together can conquer all.
This is the sound of being madly, passionately in love, that second where the souls entwine, and everything in the world is beautiful, and nothing is impossible.
This is what "Two Suns" sounds like. Two objects in orbit of each other, two massive balls of fire that can give or take life, burn or warm : two hearts, two objects of huge potential. In the rear view mirror of our lives, the two suns in the sunset - the setting white dwarf, the other the mushroom cloud of our great advances.
"Two Suns". Like the debut, it sounds like to me, the inarticulate speech of the heart, the rolling waves, the feeling beyond language, where fragments of lyric become a glimpse into another world, where percussion and punctuation thunder loving heartbeats, where souls move beyond the mundane to so much more than we ever thought.
This record elevates, transports, in the blink of an eye, a flash of the music, the whole world goes away, and you are there, dancing to a silent drum, gazing at the clouds, thinking of your loved one, the reason why we do all this, and hearing the voice of purpose in your head : This is why we do all this stuff, why we endure the indignities of work slavery and tax. Where souls meet, where lips touch, where love conquers all things. This record is not just music : the representation, the capturing in musical form of a two hearted dream, where we, us together can conquer all.
This is the sound of being madly, passionately in love, that second where the souls entwine, and everything in the world is beautiful, and nothing is impossible.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Boring
Bought this based on persistent advertising. Songs sound great in 'video-clip' format, but are intensely dull. I like her voice, but the overall thing is very dull.
Published 5 months ago by Apple-eater
Two Suns review
Bought this album on the strength of "Daniel", her voice on that track is achingly beautiful and haunting. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mr. Craig J. Roberts
I prefer fur and gold to two suns
I'm very disappointed by this album!!! Fur& gold was excellent ( I love the original instruments)and I find two suns insipid. The music of Natasha lost its charm for me!!! Read more
Published 16 months ago by Princess-Lullaby
Amazing
I really enjoyed all the tracks on this cd, they're so powerful and moving and really good to revise for your highers to!
Published 24 months ago by D. Wright
An amazingly bland and boring album
I liked the idea of her music but I didn't really care for her first album (someone I know described it as "lazy"). Read more
Published on 27 May 2010 by BS on parade
amazing album, art work but the DVD doesn't work?
So I bought this release a while ago when Bat For Lashes had sent an email about it and I listened to it a lot and was really busy so I didn't get to watch the DVD but now that I'm... Read more
Published on 26 April 2010 by Janine R.
Beautiful, haunting, album
This is wonderful music to play on a sunny afternoon when you want some music, but don't want to annoy your neighbours, There are a lot of minor melodies, and her sining voice is... Read more
Published on 11 April 2010 by Kristin
One of the more original artists in music, these days!
I came across Bat For Lashes when I went to see the Radiohead gig at London on the summer of 2008, and boy was I in for a surprise. Read more
Published on 11 Jan 2010 by Rafael Beijinho
Another Magical Offering...
Bat For Lashes never cease to impress me, I was a huge fan of "Fur and Gold" and their latest offering "Two Suns" makes for equally incredible listening. Read more
Published on 18 Dec 2009 by Ms. L. J. Braisby
perfect
Very fast shipping, and perfect album. I couldn't wait to have it and itwas really fast.
Thanxx
Thanxx
Published on 3 Nov 2009 by Antoine Mujde
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