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Review: Are Nick Wales And Sarah Blasko Secretly Psychopaths?

Are Nick Wales And Sarah Blasko secretly psychopaths?

This was one of the first thoughts I had after listening to this collaborative EP. When I picked up Nick Wales and Sarah Blasko’s Emergence, what I got was totally unexpected.

I’ve loved Sarah Blasko for a while; her whimsical vocal work always give me chills. I hadn’t heard of Nick Wales before, but a quick Google taught me that he is a Sydney-based composer, as well as the founder of a music group which combines classical music with contemporary rock and electronica.

He and Blasko have previously worked together on her latest album I Awake, where he wrote some orchestral arrangements for her. That explains why they complement each other so well with the incredible elements they bring to this masterpiece. Killer introduces us to the horror story Wales and Blasko have conducted. There is already something sinister in the percussion and piano opening of the track, with sounds of heavy wind, howling creepily in the background. Eventually, we hear Blasko’s haunting vocals, which are sparse throughout the album. The heavy emotion is shown in screeching sounds and screaming sirens until the music collapses.

Moving on to Belongil, we continue our story in bursts of sound. The short pauses are more frightening that the actual music. Here’s where I realised the focus is definitely on the instrumental components, rather than the vocals. Apart from Love The Weight, that is. The beginning is pure silence with Blasko’s beautiful folk-like voice, singing cleverly sharp lines like “I love the weight, until it’s dead”. Then the music kicks in, and so does the autotune, adding more and more layers to the song.

One of my favourite musical arrangements of the EP was that of the violin in Breathing In. It was stunning among the struggling sounds of suffering and what I believe were sounds of trickling blood. To me, this song embodied the feeling of claustrophobia with the urgency of the medley and scratching sounds towards the end, later turning into something completely insane, as Blasko’s quickened whispers opened up Burning Moment. Despite the madness, the music still manages to have structure with the piano holding the song together. The sound of a passing train at the end left me with chills. It was very Hitchcock of them.

The EP’s lead single, Pain Is A Number, has many elements. My advice is to let your imagination run wild with this one – the sounds of a car engine, banging on mental bars and heavy percussion continue the illusion of horror right until the end. Throughout this album, I felt like there was some supernatural shit going down, finally embodied by Texitorial, complete with sound effects of a flying object landing. The piano and electronic medley harmonised well with Blasko’s vocals, giving me Bat For Lashes vibes. As the EP came to a close, I was unsure what happened. All I know is I loved every minute of it.

If you enjoy thrilling stories and have a vivid imagination will love Emergence. The anticipation of the dark and twisted scenes we can only imagine will have you curled up in a ball of satisfaction as you ponder the many questions you still have. We hope to see more collaborations between Wales and Blasko in the future.

Emergence is now available via Create/ Control.