Aside from a new song debuted live over the summer and a faithful cover of Depeche Mode’s “Strangelove,” 2011 was a quiet year for Bat for Lashes. In addition to working behind the scenes on a follow-up to Two Suns, however, Natasha Khan has kept busy with an interesting non-musical project: Mothers of the Disappeared, a short film that “explores the devastating cumulative impact of violent crime, injustice, and social and gender inequality on mothers who have lost their daughters to the violent wave of disappearances in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico since 1993.” Khan, a friend of artist/director Rachael Cassells, performs English translations of oral histories accompanying portraiture in the 23-minute piece.
“Natasha has such a lovely, empathetic, maternal personality and her speaking voice is a wonderful expression of all those qualities,” Cassells told Russh. “I knew she would approach this task with great consideration, care and restraint – and allow the emotion of the mothers devastation and struggle to be communicated without being sensationalistic in any way.” DVD purchases, which directly benefit the participants in the project, can be made here, while an excerpt is above.