Five Things with Sarah Blasko
July 3, 2009Sydney songstress Sarah Blasko tells Dan Rule that the skeletal jazz and blues nuances of As Day Follows Night arose from an instrument she barely knows how to play.
Blasko was commissioned to score the Bell Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet at the same time she was writing her album. Her routine changed immediately.
“I set up an office in my manager’s building, brought in a piano and went to work everyday. You don’t want to force yourself to write a song, but there’s definitely something to sitting down and working through
it. It was like,
‘Okay, I’ve got a
real job now!’”
As its title suggests, As Day Follows Night traces an emergence from a dark period.
“A lot of the songs are when you’re trying to cheer yourself up, or when you’re trying to talk yourself through something; like when Maria sings I Have Confidence in The Sound of Music (laughs). There’s heartbreak and sadness, but this is about choosing to not actively wallow in that. True sadness is almost kind of exhilarating in this weird, terrible way.”
She may have had to travel halfway around the globe, but Blasko found a soul mate in Stockholm producer Björn Yttling.
“Luckily, when Björn and I started talking, he was hearing what I was trying to put out there. He was hearing elemental facets of jazz, and this blues and soul, like just a melody or the drum beat or the bass. I could feel a real generosity and open-mindedness in Björn, which was really important to me.”
She feels recording in foreign places adds
to the potential of
the material.
“It’s a great thing to do, because it does broaden your mind and you find yourself really ‘inside’ the experience of recording. You don’t have the everyday things of home – you’re just in this recording world,
this adventure.”
Blasko is no expert, but uses her musical naiveté to her advantage.
“Three quarters of the record was written on piano, which is my favourite instrument. It’s got so much range and so much character. That said, I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t play it very well at all, but somehow it aids me in this strange, mysterious way. It’s like, ‘How the hell did
I get here?’”
As Day Follows Night is out July 10 via Dew Process/Universal.
