Natasha Khan is someone who changed my life. Because of her I was inspired to start writing my own songs and let out my thoughts and worries creatively, instead of bottling them up. I came across her music when I was about 12/13 years old, so over 6 years ago, and I'm still as much in love with her as I was back then.
The first song I'd ever heard of hers was Pearls Dream, which came up on TV one day. I was not only captivated by the uniqueness of her lyrics and music, but also the video itself. I was at a stage in my life where I was looking for something new and different and exciting, and I'd just found it.
When I was younger I was obsessed with imagining and daydreaming about magical, alien worlds, and her music sounded exactly like what my daydreams looked like. I'd never found something like that before. Because of this it was like her music was something that felt nostalgic and comforting from the very first listen. Even throughout my teen years I continued to daydream about other worlds, but this time to the story of her second album, Two Suns, one of my favourite albums of all time (when I was 14 I even used Pearls Dream to write an assignment on a short story, I'm pretty sure it was a myth about how the sun, stars, and moon were formed). The songs all perfectly flowed and complimented each other, but were still songs I could listen to alone. They were like chapters in a book. Those are my favourite kinds of albums, ones like M83's Hurry Up We're Dreaming, and Foals' Total Life Forever. The special edition of the album, which included a short film, is one of my favourite things in the whole world, and whenever I need some inspiration, or something comforting on my really bad mental health days, I go straight to it.
I equally loved The Haunted Man, Natasha's third album but it lacked the same kind of magic of Two Suns. I guess both I and Natasha were growing up a bit, because I didn't feel like at the time I needed another Two Suns, I just needed something raw. That being said my favourite song on the album was A Wall, which has some vibes from the previous album. Maybe I wasn't totally 'grown up', but then again, who is? Still, I love dancing and singing along to all of the songs and it helped me get through some difficult times of my life.
I cannot even begin to explain how much of an impact she has had on my life. Music is one of the most important things to me, it is what I go to in desperate times for something to either distract me or take me someplace else. That is exactly what her music does, and it did more because it inspired me to create my own worlds and songs, tell exactly how I am feeling without necessarily saying it at all. I could only hope, though, to have half the magic and creativity as she does.
