Sarah Blasko
The Forum, Melbourne
Friday 2nd October
Decked out like a '40s screen siren - more than usual I mean - Sarah Blasko wafts on to stage all sharp angles, paleness and languid motion. And that's just her dress, a fantastic bulbous-jointed starched white thing; Tim Burton dressing Marlene Dietrich dreaming of Picnic At Hanging Rock. Blasko is perched centre stage on a riser, art deco footlights dotted at her feet. Above her swing a row of mess hall-style high bay lampshades, on the back wall a vast mural depicting a receding countryside, Alpine peaks in the distance. Before a note is played she's a vision, up there fronting a six piece band that includes, strings, banjo and double bass, the Forum her surreal, halted-in-time jazz club; us its dreaming visitors.
It wasn't always this way. Until recently Blasko has been arguably one other in a line of doe-eyed, thrift store devotees that ratchet up the columns in the Sunday lift-out magazines, the kind with a legend down the side mentioning *insert singer*'s favourite eateries, transient family upbringing and cheekbones. It's been a long time - if ever - that that protaganist's resume includes a serious contender for one of the great Australian records. But here now it is. As Day Follows Night is the sound of Blasko making the most mythical of artistic leaps; breaking stark new personal ground, pulling free of her previously unchallenging work, collaborators, and co-conspirators, and creating an entirely new canon that is wholly her own.
So tonight's course is written. The band is perfect. Made up of session players and seasoned vets from the likes of The Devoted Few and Coda, they expertly plot out the new songs stark pulses whilst seemingly being completely in thrall to it. Where once a Blasko set was punctuated by a slick wash of synths, a colourless rhythm-section and hooks saved for the choruses, her new songs drip a giddy, sensual atmosphere; a lone banjo pluck, the throbbing double-bass, the precisely off-kilter strings, mesh to create an intoxicating magic.
Blasko herself has transformed too. She's still the focus of attention of course but now she seems an extension of the music rather than battling to channel it. Her muse - it seems - could now be herself. As she does those exotically weird finger flicks, body struts and jerky arm movements, all the while singing of dislocation, loss and a confused heart, she's less the geeky singer and more the luminous transducer. And it's safe to say that with these pared back songs of wonder and searching, her voice has never sounded more at home.
The band play every song from As Day Follows Night (how many artists can you think of that would be confident of such a thing) and it translates as uniformly excellent, the acoustic album finding new life in the reverent silence of the Forum. Once that's in the bank, Blasko sidles up to Dave Hunt at the piano (this is somewhere after playfully unlatching her giant shoulder pads to reveal a rainbow frill fanning from each shoulder) and the two play stark renditions of 'Seems Like Old Times' from Annie Hall and 'Xanadu', both interesting but one- dimensional next to her own previous songs. From there she mines the back catalogue and for me at least, a little...the spell is broken.
(Pics: Tim O'Connor)