Fur and Gold

First steps aren’t always tentative. From the tumbling keyboard line of opening track “Horse and I” onwards, this debut album from onetime nursery teacher Natasha Khan brims with the confidence, craft and ballsy strangeness of a mid-career epic, gleefully galloping from dark doo-wop (“What’s A Girl To Do”) and jittery handclaps (“Prescilla”) to sinister pagan atmospherics (“Sarah”). By the time powerful, candlelit piano ballad “Sad Eyes” hits, Khan’s status as the new standard bearer for a particular kind of bewitching pop eccentricity is secured.