T he year my son was born, I spent a lot of time walking laps of my small ground-floor flat in a milky, slightly hysterical state of sleep deprivation, listening to a set of instrumental albums by Raymond Scott from 1962 called Soothing Sounds for Baby. YouTube helpfully let me put them on repeat, between scratchy loops of synthetically produced white noise. The Guardian’s journalism is independent.
We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. “Yes! I listened to Soothing Sounds for Baby too!” says Natasha Khan, AKA Bat for Lashes , whose daughter, Delphi, is now three.
“Delphi grew up on instrumental and ambient music – a lot of synthy 80s stuff and Japanese composers.” Khan’s new album, The Dream of Delphi, is her own sonic celebration of those sleepless days in early motherhood, with tracks such as The Midwives Have Left, Her First Morning and Letter to My Daughter . “It’s such a hallucinatory, liminal experience that documenting seems to be the only thing you can do,” she says as we video-call on our sofas, talking about the psychedelic transformation that is motherhood.
The Dream of Delphi is a multi-textured album that moves through warm, lo-fi synth melodies to big symphonic soundscapes. The accompanying music videos include choreography clearly influenced by the actions and repetitions of looking after a baby. Khan has also produced a tarot deck and is working on a novella, both of which touch on motherhood.
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