The five songs on Australian singer-songwriter Sarah Blasko’s latest EP, Forgotten World, were recorded and mixed at the same time as her highly celebrated seventh album, I Just Need to Conquer This Mountain, from 2024. Critics praised that album for its exploration of dark personal themes (e.g., divorce, religious doubt, death) that serve as a vehicle for looking toward a brighter future. The songs on the new EP were not included because they would make the original record too long. That would drain from the impact Blasko, as producer, wanted the collection to have.
However, these songs were too good to be forgotten, as the title of the new release suggests. These piano-driven tracks connect both sonically and thematically. Blasko creates otherworldly atmospherics to evoke unconscious thoughts and emotions that lie behind and beyond our mindful behavior. One does not have to be Sigmund Freud to interpret her “Dreams”, as one song puts it. The mysteries of our hopes and desires become manifest when one reflects on the past to guide current behavior. Her dreams may have died, but her soul is alive. New dreams are born from the old ones.
Blasko has a high-pitched, elegant voice, somewhat reminiscent of Kate Bush during her “Wuthering Heights” phase. That adds to the EP’s ethereal effect. The songs seem to come from the spirit world through her voice. “I think I know what we’re talking about without us ever needing words / What you’re projecting is out of this world / Language felt not heard,” she chants in “Human”. Blasko posits feelings over logic and thought. She expresses higher meanings through sound. The lyrics do not offer details or specifics about the past because they are no longer important. All that is left is moving on.
Of course, things are not so simple. The singer finds herself “Overboard”, a word she sings repeatedly to express being lost in the sea of love. Blasko cries so much that she causes a flood; she poetically wails. However, she does not drown. She may feel alone, yet she understands the act of singing is redemptive in and of itself. Sadness is temporary. Blasko has changed and will continue to do so.
Everything may be “Upside Down”, but there is an, ahem, upside to being down. There is a thrill in starting over. The end of old ways promises self-discovery and new ways of being. The “woo-hoos” that punctuate the verses on the final track reveal her exhilaration. Blasko’s former existence may be dead and buried, but the inner spark has not burnt out.
The “Forgotten World” of who she once was re-emerges in her understanding of what has been lost and what has been gained. The beauty of the EP lies in Sarah Blasko’s creative use of her personal demons to share deep feelings without being overwhelmed by them. The songs function as a residence for the future, not a mausoleum for the past.