Bats in the Belfry: An interview with Natasha Kahn, aka Bat for Lashes

Another case houses a Bob Dylan guitar but it's an electric and too flash. Alongside there's a Jimi Hendrix guitar but it's a Gibson Flying V, flasher still, and of the type you'd associate with players lacking his fire-starting flair. I ask Khan what she'd steal were we to scrap the interview and make a run for it. Her big brown eyes alight on a Fender Jazzmaster. "This was Kurt Cobain's? Then I'll have it."

For a split second I think she's actually going to smash the glass and scarper. At our conversation's appointed hour, she couldn't be found. Then she was spotted in the park across the road. There are six lanes of tarmac, sunken and barricaded, between park and cafe, but her disregard for such obstacles tells you a lot about Khan's love of green spaces, and also her aversion to talking about herself.

"I'm nervous today," she says. "It's the first date on the tour for the new album and this environment is… strange." Organised by a music mag, with sponsors among the invited guests, it's not a proper gig for the faithful, the fans who love her wolf, unicorn and, of course, bat imagery. She's out of place among these relics because Two Suns is only her second album.

Dressed in baggy T-shirt, leggings and pumps, multifarious bangles and beads, and with a tiny bat tattoo on her left wrist, she's even prettier in the flesh.

She emerged from the dank shadows in 2007. The Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut Fur And Gold was clasped to the fluttering hearts of those for whom there isn't nearly enough fruitloop fantasy in pop, and those who'd got tired of waiting for Kate Bush's next comeback. Radiohead's Thom Yorke declared himself a fan, as did Bjrk, and Kanye West loved the bunny-masked formation bikers on the video for 'What's A Girl To Do?', the standout track.

Did Kahn, 29, feel under pressure for the follow-up? "Well, I'm on a bigger label now so there's more expectation but I think I pulled off quite a good trick of disappearing to New York and telling them I had no new songs when really I had a lot, and that bought me time so I could map out the creative journey."

An early review of Two Suns suggested Bat for Lashes had gone mainstream on us. Certainly Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks would be proud to call lead single 'Daniel' one of hers, but this is a record which has Khan despairing "Where's my bear to lick me clean?", dueting with Scott Walker at his most doomily theatrical, and slipping on a platinum blonde wig to play femme fatale alter-ego Pearl. So, not that mainstream. Still mad as a bottle of crisps, in fact. Thank goodness.

The album is the story of Khan's last two years: her flight to New York, a romance which ended in disillusionment, and her return home. The ex is reported as being Will Lemon of Brooklyn band Moon And Moon, but Kahn isn't saying. "All I want to say is in the lyrics. That's why I put songs out there, so I don't have to talk about my life." When she's not singing about emerald cities and crystal towers, her words could hardly be termed vague – "Never fall in love with potential," she sings, then later: "Will I ever find that place they call good love?" – but this only seems to encourage supplementary questions. "It fascinates me that people always want more. You put your heart and soul on the line but it's not enough. Incredible…"

Khan wants to know why journalists seem to think they make brilliant psychologists, but it's obvious to this one that she finds it easier to discuss the most intense relationship of her life to date through Pearl. "She became this art project/visual symbol which helped me identify with New York, but what I was really looking for was old New York – the one of Leonard Cohen, the Chelsea Hotel, Andy Warhol, Studio 54, breakdancing and the birth of hip hop."

In the wee small hours, Khan would don the wig and walk the streets while the boyfriend took photographs. "But moving to New York destroyed my fantasy, both of the city and what my relationship would be like there," she continues. "Through Pearl I was clinging on to the illusion, and not wanting to let go of a desire and emotional longing for this glamorous, dark, debauched lifestyle. In the end, though, it all fell apart.

"New York was an important time, but now I feel quite English about everything again, although I've just had a premonition about the next album – this happened right after the first one was finished as well – and it's going to take me to Scotland. I loved Gavin Maxwell's Ring Of Bright Water as a child and I'm re-reading it now.

"My plan is to head for the Highlands. I want to get a cottage by a loch and ride a horse into the wilderness."

Born in Herefordshire to an English Christian mother and a Pakistani Muslim father, Khan says she's always possessed an overactive imagination. "Growing up, my imaginary friends were always more exciting than my real ones. When the real ones came to play, I'd make them wait in the cupboard under the stairs while I carried on talking to the witches. I was always writing letters to the fairies as well – on the smallest scraps of paper – and at night I'd leave them bluebells in matchboxes."

The journalist-psychologist might wonder if Khan's fantasy world became a place of escape after her parents' divorce when their daughter was 12; she says not. Early on, she benefited from the dual faith.

"My Church of England school was great for storytelling and from my dad I learned a strong moral sense: respect the matriarch, don't lie, be kind. But after my parents split up I decided to step out of the safety net of religion and begin the search for a different kind of spirituality."

She tried to find the positive in the break-up and says it has taught her compassion. These days, David Attenborough on TV is her kind of religious experience.

Before becoming Britain's kookiest pop star, Khan had a spell as a nursery teacher. "I suppose I veered off the traditional path with those kids," she says. "When it rained, my stories about the thunder dragon got a bit scary, but a cuddle would sort everyone out – I'm very maternal."

Not much has changed: she's still telling tales about animals. And upstairs at the Hard Rock Cafe, the stage is being decked with stag heads and fox tea-towels.

I wonder if her dreams are different from other people's; that they play in Technicolor, VistaVision and Sensurround. She laughs. "Funny you should ask, because last night I was swimming in this vast ocean with a whale calf – speckled, maybe 6ft long – but it was very tired and I kept trying to grab under its belly and push it to the surface so it could breathe. What do you make of that, psychologically?"

The show is terrific. Amy Winehouse, flanked by her brick out-house minders, is spirited up the back, to check out the opposition. Down the front it's all men, some of whom probably want to marry Khan, now sporting aquamarine eyeliner. All of the pre-tour tension has vanished and she sings beautifully. I half-shut my eyes and swear I can see a baby whale swimming happily above her. v

Bat for Lashes plays Glasgow's Queen Margaret Union, Wednesday. Two Suns (Parlophone) is out tomorrow www.batforlashes.com

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