Natasha Khan loves covers and the Cure see their share of ‘em, so this was a statistical inevitability. The track comes as part of a larger compilation full of takes on Robert & Co.’s works, entitled Perfect As Cats: A Tribute To The Cure featuring the likes of Jesu, Lewis & Clarke, the Muslims, Indian Jewelry, etc. Bat For Lashes brings her eerie sylvan-mystic vibe to, fittingly, “A Forest” (link warning: whoa young Robert Smith), from 1980′s Seventeen Seconds. If you liked what she did to the Boss, you’ll love.

• Bat For Lashes – “A Forest”Download

Ever hear about the “Robert Palmer Version” of “A Forest”? Fun fact via Wiki:

The most notorious performance of this song is the so-called “Robert Palmer” version, performed at the Werchter Festival in Belgium, July 5, 1981. Everything was late at the festival, and the crowd was mostly there to see artists that were at the time bigger than The Cure, like Dire Straits and Robert Palmer, of whom the latter happened to be the next on stage after The Cure. After twelve songs, Palmer’s roadies said that if The Cure didn’t stop playing soon, they would pull the plug. They reached a compromise that they would play one song before they left, opting for “A Forest”, which they decided to play a lot longer than what was normal at the time (almost ten minutes), with Robert Smith adding some lyrics improvised on the spot (including the words: “Such a long end” repeated several times). When the band finally finished, bass player Simon Gallup yelled into the microphone: “Fuck Robert Palmer, and fuck rock ‘n’ roll!” Palmer’s roadies responded by throwing the Cure’s gear off the back of the stage.

Simply irresistible. Perfect As Cats: A Tribute To The Cure is out via Manimal Vinyl on 10/28. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Invisible Children. Hear a few more, including Devestations’ take on “All Cats Are Grey,” at MySpace. Here’s how it’s looking:

Bat For Lashes – “A Forest”
Jesu – “The Funeral Party”
Xu Xu Fang – “Fascination Street”
The Muslims – “Grinding Halt”
Astrid Quay & War Cloud – “The Caterpillar”
The Dandy Warhols – “Primary”
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – “Dressing Up”
Indian Jewelry – “The Walk”
Army Navy – “Jumoing Someone Else’s Train”
Rio en Medio – “Pictures of You”
Hecuba – “Killing An Arab”
Veil Veil Vanish – “The Upstairs Room”
Aquaserge and Laure Briard – “10.15 Saturday Night”
Joker’s Daughter – “Kyoto Song”
Voyager One – “M”
Ex-Reverie – “The Hanging Garden”
Devastations – “All Cats Are Gray”
Les Bicyclettes Blanches – “Hot Hot Hot!!!”
Katrine Ottosen (CALLmeKAT) – “The Love Cats”
Mariee Sioux – “Love Song”
Wolfkin – “Charlotte Sometimes”
Rainbow Arabia – “Six Different Ways”
Corridor – “The Kiss”
Tara Busch – “Let’s Go To Bed”
Kaki King – “Close To Me”
Lewis & Clarke – “Disintegration”
blackblack – “In Between Days”
We Are The World – “Why Can’t I Be You?”
Sarabeth Tucek – “Three Imaginary Boys”
Apollo Heights – “The Top”
Gangi – “Fire In Cairo”
Buddy – “Sugar Girl”
Ich Bin Aiko – “A Strange Day”
Silver Summit – “A Night Like This”
Caroline Weeks – “The Drowning Man”
Lemon Sun – “The Exploding Boy”

What, no ScarJo?