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Photo credit Mclean Stephenson

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Photo – Marcus Coblyn

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Praise for I JUST NEED TO
CONQUER THIS MOUNTAIN

#6 ARIA Aus Album Debut

Double J – Feature Album

“This is her defining album so far.” – MOJO

“Sarah Blasko’s voice is like a flame: unique, mesmerising to observe, and, when caught up close, has the ability to cause tears.” – Rolling Stone Australia

“Blasko’s voice is one of the more extraordinary instruments to have graced a pop song this century… It’s an album that demands consumption as a complete work, building to the gentle, reconciled show-stopper ‘Divine’ – but highlights en route include ‘Goodbye!’, a Tindersticks-esque duet with Ryan Downey, and ‘I Can’t Wait Anymore’, an impeccably executed hymn to the difficulties and benefits of letting go” – UNCUT

“This is a new peak for Sarah Blasko. We’re calling it here and now – it’s one of the albums of the year. The mountain has been conquered.” – STACK

“Blasko remains untouchable… An exquisite explosion of melodies offset by the dark vulnerability of her vocal delivery, Blasko’s seventh album offers solace to the dispirited” – Beat Magazine

“brutal and honest and suffused with melancholia… Blasko’s music often feels like it follows the lineage of mod and the core values of that style: aspirational, inspirational, forward looking, tightly wound, late-night fuelled.” – The Guardian

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On the eve of her final weekend of the I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain album shows, revered 3x Platinum and 3x ARIA Award-winning singer, songwriter, musician and producer Sarah Blasko today announces an extended 25-date tour this February-April throughout NSW, VIC, QLD, ACT and TAS – including her first regional dates since 2017 (full details below) – in addition to already-announced shows at Bundanon, Queenscliff Town Hall, and Her Majesty’s Theatre (Wadawurrung/Ballarat). Tickets to Sarah Blasko’s 2025 tour are on sale 9am (local) tomorrow, Fri 13 Dec from sarahblasko.com, with special guests to be announced.

Sarah Blasko is touring in celebration of her seventh solo album I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain which debuted at #6 on the ARIA Australian Album Chart and was crowned Double J Feature Album. It traces the inevitability of painful goodbyes in all their forms and the final acceptance that follows a period of grief, and sees Sarah Blasko firmly in the present as she searches for the light that comes with new beginnings. In their glowing album review, MOJO named it “her defining album so far” with Rolling Stone Australia sharing that “from the top, she takes us to church, confesses, hollows us out, refills our cups” in their 4-star review. Blasko’s much-loved and highly acclaimed live show takes the album to a simultaneously more expansive and intimate place – watch a selection of tracks recorded live from the ABC Studios for a special Double J and triple j edition of Live at the Wireless.

I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain was released alongside a video suite that aired in full on rage as part of her Guest Program last month. A collection of technicolour dreamscapes made by SPOD, he used both analogue and digital techniques to manipulate footage that Sarah Blasko filmed alongside photographer Wilk, and lighting designer Bazz Barrett, in a few fun days at the Richard Wherrett Studio on Gadigal Land in Sydney last year. 

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I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain is an album of late night reflections on goodbyes, grief, new beginnings, and an important friendship that underpinned Sarah Blasko’s childhood, and finds one of Australia’s most revered songwriters more reflective and more personal than ever before. 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” – while thematically traversing 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 that time changes ourselves, our hopes and our dreams. Despite roaming some big subject matter, I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain 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.

Sarah Blasko is as expansive as she is prolific, writing songs that strike with rare immediacy, clarity and purpose. Across a discography of six solo albums – Depth of Field (2018), Eternal Return (2015), I Awake (2012), As Day Follows Night (2009), What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have (2006) and The Overture & the Underscore (2004) – and two albums with Holly Throsby and Sally Seltmann as Seeker Lover Keeper – Seeker, Lover, Keeper (2011) and Wild Seeds (2019) – four albums have reached Platinum Sales Status with six debuts in the ARIA Top 10. Sarah Blasko is a three-time ARIA Award winner, 18x ARIA Award nominee, has won the J Award for Australian Album of the Year, and three-times shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize. Her cover of Cold Chisel’s ‘Flame Trees’ (2004) had a resurgence when it was featured in Season 2 of Netflix’s Heartbreak High, spawning a remix by Cub Sport released this June. Sarah Blasko composed the music for Bell Shakespeare’s productions of Twelfth Night (2023) and Hamlet (2008), Sydney Dance Company’s Emergence (2013), has been praised by the likes of Sir Elton John on his visit to James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.

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TOUR DATES

Tickets on sale 9am (local) Friday 13 Dec from sarahblasko.com

Thur 12 Dec – The Gov – Kaurna/Adelaide, SA
Fri 13 Dec – Freo Social – Boorloo/Perth, WA
Sat 1 Feb – Canberra Theatre – Ngunnawal Country/Canberra, ACT
Fri 7 Feb – Milton Theatre – Yuin Country/Milton, NSW
Sat 8 Feb – Bundanon Art Museum – Dharawal/Bundanon, NSW
Fri 14 Feb – Burrinja – Wurundjeri Land/Upwey, VIC
Sat 15 Feb – Queenscliff Town Hall – Wathaurong/Queenscliff, VIC
Fri 21 Feb – Jetty Memorial Theatre – Gumbaynggirr/Coffs Harbour, NSW
Sat 22 Feb – Brunswick Picture House – Bundjalung/Brunswick Heads, NSW
Sun 23 Feb – Miami Marketta – Bundjalung and Yugambeh/Gold Coast, QLD
Fri 28 Feb – Birregurra Hall – Birregurra, VIC
Sat 1 Mar – The Wedge – Wayput/Sale, VIC
Sun 2 Mar – Frankston Arts Centre – Boon Wurrung/Frankston, VIC
Sat 8 Mar – Tanks Arts Centre – Yidinji Country/Cairns, QLD
Wed 12 Mar – Avoca Theatre – Bulbararong/Avoca, NSW
Thur 13 Mar – Glasshouse Theatre – Birpai Country/Port Macquarie, NSW
Sat 15 Mar – Blue Mountains Folk Festival – Ngurra Country/Blue Mountains, NSW
Fri 21 Mar – Echuca Paramount – Yorta Yorta/Echuca, VIC
Sat 22 Mar – Her Majesty’s Theatre – Wadawurrung/Ballarat, VIC
Sun 23 Mar – The Lighthouse – Gunditjmara Country/Warrnambool, VIC
Fri 28 Mar – The Memo – Wurrundjeri Land/Healesville, VIC
Sat 29 Mar – Meeniyan Town Hall – Meeniyan, VIC
Sun 30 Mar – Archies Creek Hotel – Gunditjmara Country/Archies Creek, VIC
Fri 4 Apr – Keystone 1889 – Wiradjuri Country/Bathurst, NSW
Sat 5 Apr – Newcastle Civic Theatre – Awabakal and Worimi Country/Newcastle, NSW
Sat 19 Apr – Odeon Theatre – nipaluna/Hobart, TAS
Sun 20 Apr – Du Cane – pulingina/Launceston, TAS

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Sarah Blasko – I Just Need To Conquer This Mountain
out now (Independent)
 Stream/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

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YouTube · Apple Music
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AMNPLIFY – DB