Sarah Blasko Announces National Album Tour & New Single ‘Bothering Me’ Out Now

Revered 3x Platinum and 3x ARIA Award-winning singer, songwriter, musician and producer SARAH BLASKO unveils the tracklist for her first full-length studio album in six years I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain (out Nov 1), announces her national album tour this November/December and shares the new single + video Bothering Me. Tracing the inevitability of painful goodbyes in many forms, and the grief – and acceptance – that follows, I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain sees Sarah Blasko firmly in the present as she searches for the light that comes with new beginnings. Bothering Me is out everywhere now and pre-order I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain HERE.

Tickets to Sarah Blasko’s album tour, on which she’ll perform songs from I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain and her extensive back catalogue across Qld, NSW, SA and WA – in addition to the already announced VIC shows – backed by her live band are on sale 9am local this Thursday 29 August.

On the howling new single Bothering Me, Sarah 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 past at night and how her life is not aligned with what her younger self once foresaw. These small but powerful reckonings cut a lot deeper than the track’s title suggests. “Dreams seem to be a way of processing things that happen during the day and so I embraced dreaming as a way of getting over things,” Blasko explains, “Getting older is TOUGH. Sometimes I don’t know who I am anymore and that I’ve lost touch with the person I used to be and the dreams I held. I try to let go but not let go at the same time because dreams are important.”

The Bothering Me video captures Sarah Blasko in technicolour as she makes moves through kaleidoscopic scenes; it was created by SPOD, who also edited and provided visual effects, with filming by Wilk and lighting design by Bazz Barrett. On the video, Sarah Blasko shares, “All the video material for the record was created when three people – a lighting person (Bazz Barrett), a videographer (Wilk) and a singer with an album (me) – spent three days in a very nice rehearsal room, not really knowing what we’d come out with or what it would all mean. We played around and laughed a lot, and in the end were proud of the spirit of what we captured.” Spod adds, “Getting this project from Sarah was intriguing as usually I’d be involved from the beginning with a defined idea of what I’m aiming to do, but this is a much more improvised, free form experimental project where I was delivered footage and given free reign. I didn’t want to take it too far but wanted to heighten the momentum and emotion of the song, so I pushed the footage into the abstract noise and colour of analog effects.”

Together with the album’s first single The Way, Bothering Me sets the scene for I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain as an album of late night reflections on goodbyes, grief, new beginnings and an important friendship that underpinned her childhood. It was recorded at Rancom Street Studios in Eora/Sydney with engineer Brent Clark, produced by Sarah Blasko and mixed by Kenny Gilmore (Weyes Blood, Julia Holter, Ariel Pink), and marked a new approach to writing and recording from that of her earlier records: “This album was probably the most relaxed and free feeling record I’ve made,” Sarah Blasko shares.

Sarah Blasko – I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain
November 1, 2024 | Pre-save + Pre-order

TRACK LIST
The Way
Bothering Me
Goodbye! (feat. Ryan Downey)
I Can’t Wait Anymore
Give You Up
Emotions
In My Head
Dream Weaver
To Be Alone
Divine

TOUR DATES
Tickets on sale 9am (local) Thursday 29 August from sarahblasko.com