It’s Late August and Hurricane Dean is pounding Mexico. Rochester as a result, is cold and drizzling. Fall is almost upon us. I know now that the Bat For Lashes album Fur and Gold will be my fall soundtrack. It’s cold and sparse and open. It has an air of self-pity, which I feel anybody can relate to.

I know absolutely nothing about Bat For Lashes, the album Fur and Gold or Natasha Khan, the mysterious woman on the cover who sings to me. For no particular reason her songs take me back to high school and the sinking feeling of a heart breaking. The realization that life may not turn out ok. The idea that confidence and arrogance are the veils of the stupid and ignorant.

Even today, as the ATM told me I have less than a hundred dollars left and I can feel rent peaking it’s persistent claws over the horizon. The fail-safe corporate gig (my first ever) will save it all next Thursday. Auto-deposit.

She sings, “My heart grows colder with each day / And when you love someone / But the thrill is gone / And your kisses at night / Are replaced by tears,” on the single “What’s a Girl To Do?” Khan’s voice is calming and sad. The video for this track is worth its three minutes in gold.

It rained all day today. The same is scheduled for tomorrow. Fur and Gold is the score for when my own musical ambitions seem trivial and nonexistent. And self-pity becomes a viable option. Even when the corporate marry-go-round saddens me, I realize I’ll snap out of it and that there’s hope. That in the future I’ll revisit these times with an album full of melancholy nostalgia.

For more info visit the Fish And Crown website.