Shaving Quick Tip of the Day

Quick tip while I am remembering. When shaving, and remember to go with the grain, shave after a hot shower but with cold water. The cold water will make the blades on the razor contract and get closer together because of science. This creates a closer shave and the cold water also helps close your pores after a hot shower. The cold water is also effective as de-fogging my vanity mirror making the whole operation a lot less vague.

Up to SCALE: Bat For Lashes

            My favorite thing about modern music is how unabashedly weird it is.  I will stave off my love for Gaga this post and focus on a more off-the-beaten-path kind of girl.  The Brighton-born Natasha Kahn known as Bat for Lashes has the audacity to write songs about wizards, bats, and the karate kid all while taking herself and her music very seriously.  I first got into her when she released her debut album, Fur and Gold, a couple of years ago and from the get go loved how legitimately odd she is.  Bat has since shown up at every hipster bar and music festival across the world to show off her fur and gold and feathers and immaculate piano skills.

            Her new album, Two Suns, evolves her music into a more electronic and hypnotic place, which is one of my favorite places to be.  She is like the best parts of Imogen Heap and Joanna Newsom with a button nose.  The lead single, the aforementioned song about the karate kid Daniel, has pumping melancholy beats that menace over Kahn’s haunting pipes.  Bat has the ability to layer a complex web of sounds and then paint over them in watercolor strokes of melody that mesh each song into its own sonic playground.

            There is nothing better than a brash songstress that can at once use strings and synths to transport the listener to her world.  The power in that ability has transformed into the staying power for ladies like Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and Cat Power.  And like those other artist Kahn has her silver tongue a bit in her check.  She gets that not everyone will get what she is talking about, and for them there is the shear sonic pleasure.  Everyone else who can connect to not only the music but also the words will find themselves touched by Bat’s power, and they may even cry a gold tear like Kahn does on the cover of Two Suns.