SARAH BLASKO

Sarah Blasko grew up believing the end was coming. Raised in a Pentecostal church, she was taught that Jesus would return and the world would be over before she was 30. Now in her 40s, the world still standing and her days in the church long behind her, Blasko is taking stock of her life, her history and where she has landed. She is saying goodbye to old relationships and old dreams, opening new doors, and learning that sometimes, when confronted with great struggle, all you can do is laugh. Blasko’s seventh solo album, I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain, finds one of Australia’s most revered songwriters more reflective and more personal than ever before. It is a record about both the heartbreak and quiet calm that comes with letting go of your younger self, how thin the line between tragedy and comedy becomes the older we get, and the way time changes ourselves, our hopes and our dreams.

It was events both global and personal that prompted Blasko to reflect on her personal history and confront the big stuff of love and loss head on. In 2020, the Sydney-based musician both gave birth to her second child and experienced the rupture of a lifelong friendship – all the while the world was in chaos. The timing was oddly poetic, as two people who had been raised waiting for the apocalypse to strike parted ways as it felt like that day was finally upon us. The enforced downtime of that year forced Blasko to re-evaluate the past, to make peace with who she is and who she isn’t, the things that have come to be in her life and that which probably won’t. By working it all out in song, in I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain, Blasko has created a late-night record inspired by gospel music and infused with religious motifs; a set of hymns for the non-believers.

I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain begins with ‘The Way’, in which Blasko questions whether turning her back on god spurred her own personal misfortune. “Show me the way/ the truth of my life,” she cries, subverting the bible verse “I am the way and the truth and the life”. Written together with songwriter Bec Sandridge, who herself had a Christian upbringing, the track became a scream into the wind about the long process of untangling yourself from religion. On the howling ‘Bothering Me’, Blasko confronts dreams – both the kind we have when we’re asleep and the ones we hold for our future – as she is revisited by her lost friend at night and haunted by the way her life is not aligned with what her younger self once foresaw, small but powerful reckonings that cut a lot deeper than the track’s title suggests. ‘Goodbye!’, which features the soothing vocals of Melbourne singer-songwriter Ryan Downey, is a final, triumphant and loving farewell to the past and the people who prowl its alleyways. And on ‘Give You Up’, Blasko sings a promise to her loved ones to never give up on them – or herself.

Elsewhere, Blasko reaches acceptance in her journey to part with the ideas and people that no longer serve her (‘I Can’t Wait Anymore’) and pushes through to new beginnings and mindsets (‘In My Head’). Backed by unrestrained horns, she revels in all her big, dramatic and inconvenient feelings (‘Emotions’) and pays tribute to her much-loved and dearly missed friend and former tour manager, Greg Weaver, who passed away in 2019 (‘Dream Weaver’). In her most candidly autobiographical track to date, on ‘To Be Alone’, Blasko excavates the divorce she went through in her mid-20s, a split that saw her run from commitment for many years afterwards – until now, where she finds herself happily ensconced in a domestic life once again, mother to two children who help her see the world in new ways. And, finally, on

‘Divine’, Blasko clutches tight to the beauty in the everyday. Growing up in a fanatical church, she spent her childhood fixated on the end, the afterlife and what comes next. Now, Blasko finds joy in being in the here and now, enjoying the little things, and soaking up the

wonder that is all around us.

Recorded at Rancom Studios in Sydney in late 2022, I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain has been the long-time singer-songwriter’s most relaxed album yet, one that she made more effortlessly than anything before it. In making this record – which she produced herself – Blasko focussed on enjoying herself in the studio rather than fixating on the result. She let the musicians she worked with on creating the album bring themselves to the songs, trusting in their talents and the flow of collaboration rather than dictating what she wanted them to do. And while she laboured over her first album with 12-hour days for weeks on end, this record was recorded over just five days. That approach fuelled some of the most beautiful, assured and honest work of her long career. Blasko has previously released six solo albums across her twenty years in the music industry and a further two as part of the supergroup Seeker Lover Keeper, her discography including four Platinum-selling albums and six that have reached the ARIA Top 10. She is the recipient of three ARIA Awards and a J Award and beyond her own material, Blasko has also written music for Bell Shakespeare productions and composed for Sydney Dance Company.

But despite the big subject matter it traverses, I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain is not a work of doom and gloom. The album’s title – just like the record itself – is a declaration of positivity and hope amidst the difficulty of life, one that recognises the duality in all things, and pushes forward into the light. As Blasko sings on ‘I Can’t Wait Anymore’: “I can’t afford to go back/ I don’t want what I lack/ I wanna live like I’m reborn!”

Because as Blasko has learned, life is all about embracing the contradictions. As we get older, some dreams have to die so that others can be born. The more you learn about yourself, the more you realise you really know nothing at all. And life gets more absurd as it goes on; the timing of our challenges is often so comical it feels like a big joke from above. So maybe there is a god, after all.. 

Record Label: Independent / MVKA (UK, EU, North America)

Booking Agent: ANZ: Collective Artists / UK/EU: Midnight Mango

Publishing: Sony Music Publishing