Sarah Blasko's emotional rescue

Sarah Blasko is sitting in what you could call, if you werebeing extremely generous, the "boardroom" of the little warren thatis the Sydney office of her management company.

It was in this room, sitting at "the crappy, out-of-tune piano"she calls Everett and keeping office hours and office habits, thatshe spent many weeks last year writing the songs that ended up onher new album, As Day Follows Night.

There is no natural light but there is, directly above thepiano, a giant framed platinum award for classic one-hit wonder,New Zealand rapper OMC, whose song How Bizarre also summedup his career trajectory.

"I did get quite philosophical looking at that," Blasko sayswith a hint of a smirk. "It made me realise just how short lifeis."

Blasko, who is described by good friend and fellow songwriterDarren Hanlon as having a goofy sense of humour (and a mean karaokevoice, quite unlike her stage voice), is caught between laughterand seriousness in the shadow of OMC. An understandable position,really.

"Looking at awards like that, for people who aren't necessarilyaround, it's like writing in a graveyard," she says. "But I thinkit's always good to think about one's mortality, musical orotherwise."

OK, but what was she doing working in an office? While she maydress like a primly stylish office manager-cum-librarian from theearly 1970s (today she is in a high-neck, paisley patterngrey-and-brown dress with her little brown boots laceless), youdon't expect people to be creative in the shadow of the Bundyclock.

"I do think it's quite reassuring to see other people whileyou're working," says Blasko, explaining that she had been livingalone in a little Newtown bolthole until very recently. Perhaps,even more pertinently, not only was she living alone but, for thefirst time in her career, the fine-boned Sydneysider was writingalone.

Her long-time personal and creative relationship with RobertCranny, with whom she had written and produced her first twoalbums, had ended some time back. So now, at 32, the woman whoalways thought of herself more as a singer and writer than amusician was flying solo.

"I felt like I had to. I felt like if I didn't do it now I wouldalways wonder why," she says. "I really love writing with otherpeople, I always have, but it was coming to a point where I wasfinding it a little frustrating with other people. Not because ofthem, it was just I felt I needed to not have any compromise."

On the first listens of As Day Follows Night, it maysound like "without compromise" meant without the musicalcomplexity and lyrical opaqueness of her quite stunning secondalbum What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have, which scoredseven ARIA Award nominations and won Best Pop Album in 2007 andalso earned her an Australian Music Prize nomination. This is analbum, much to the pleasure of her record label, that is simpler,cleaner and more optimistic than its predecessor.

But take a closer look and you see that things are much morecomplicated than that. It begins with Blasko declaring that she is"down on love"; later she tells a putative lover "how can you knowme when I don't even understand me" and doubt and lonelinessunderpin even the sunniest melodies. "To be honest, I genuinelywent into quite a dark period and it was broader than just [abreakup]," Blasko says, her discomfort at the subject stark as shehalf turns away, tightly bound, with her arms wrapped aroundherself.

"It was a really, really tough time. One of those times when youfeel like you are questioning everything in your life. You arequestioning the main thing you do in your life, which is writingand playing music, feeling a bit of hopelessness."

It was then that she found herself listening to the likes ofNina Simone and Billie Holiday and a lot of soul music.

"These great singers who responded to heartbreak seemed reallyrelevant to me when I was feeling kind of rock-bottom I guess, touse a cliche," she says now, adding with a half laugh ofembarrassment at what she fears is another cliche: "I wasemotionally exhausted."

Three years ago, Blasko talked about feeling that she hadfinally been able to put aside some of the complications of herpast, like her conflicted attitude to faith after a childhood invarious pentecostal churches and an early unsuccessfulmarriage.

She was ready to move on with greater confidence in her ownability to change, she said. But the propensity for darkness neverreally leaves, though this time Blasko chose not to wallow butinstead use the writing as a way out for her and as a pointer forothers.

"I think it's something that I am constantly struggling with. Idon't know whether it's like a family curse but I think there is adarkness," she says. "That's why the record really had to be aboutpulling yourself out of that because anyone who's gone through anykind of depression or felt literally like you can't go on (knows)it's about changing the environment. These songs were, in part,that for me. Stuff like Sleeper Awake and We Won'tRun and Down on Love, they are all about that feeling ofa loss of hope but desperately trying to find that again. Trying tomake it into a positive."

Blasko's answer makes even more sense of a comment about herfrom another Sydney songwriter, Josh Pyke, who has watched her fromside stage ("she is fairly transcendent when she is performing," hesays) and listened with some intent to an artist he describes asfeeling like she is beyond his scope as a songwriter.

"Some writers will lead you back to yourself with their wordsand their music but Sarah's music has always taken me right outsidemy own life and into a kind of romantic, imagined existence," Pykesays. "The sonic palette, her voice and the arrangements aren't atall parochial and, for me, that creates a feeling of real escapismwhen I listen to her stuff."

Escapism in one sense is what Blasko wanted this album toprovide. Without the oblique lyricism she had favoured previouslyand with simple arrangements and straightforward music, the newalbum colours the emotional turmoil in a completely differenthue.

It is, as she keeps returning to in her answers, something meantto be understood. "Generous" is a phrase she uses often to sum upher intention.

"The thought of making - and I know it's a cliche - these thingsuniversal, to make them relatable to other people, was reallyimportant to me," Blasko explains, beginning to unfurl her narrowbody.

"I didn't want to be unnecessarily wordy, just cut to the chase.And I think the idea of it, relating to other people, having thatgenerosity, is what made me feel better. I feel that this is myproject, to make something that's bigger than my story."

This is why her choice to write on her own this time is all themore interesting, as Hanlon says she went into this album terrifiedbut determined to write it all by herself. Beyond confidence aboutwhether she could do it or not, it would have been tempting to relyon other people to do the work, to take some of the spotlight offher and her singular concerns.

She did change gears to record the album, in Stockholm, with amore collaborative approach alongside Bjorn Yttling of power popgroup Peter Bjorn and John (that was "just liberating", says Blaskoof having another voice in the process) but the focus remained onnot just being straightforward but being transparent. Not justabout the depression and the way out but also the mixed feelingsabout those moments of heightened emotion.

"Much of the album is about that awakening, seeing things forwhat they are. That's probably why I chose that particular style ofbeing obvious in a way," says Blasko. "It's like when everythingaround you becomes painfully clear and that's really wonderful,like a heartbreakingly good time. It's odd how at the hardest timethere is almost something wonderful about it that you never want tolose: you don't want to lose that feeling of being really in touchwith what's real and you can so easily forget those things wheneverything is easy and quiet.

"So I think there's a bit of a wonder in it, which I reallywanted to capture, that feeling that you are seeing everything anewwhich is harsh and hard and revealing and good. Everything, at thesame time."

How bizarre? Not so much.

As Day Follows Night is out July 10 through DewProcess/Universal.

-Bernard Zuel