Run For Your Life, the new single from Bertie Blackman is available digitally today.  From the first major-chord chorus, Run for Your Life triggers the very sensations Bertie Blackman is singing about: your feet pound the pavement, the air rushes into your lungs, the blood pumps through your veins. It recalls the dizzy highs of a John Hughes movie, The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink: the blast of synths and the jubilant fist in the air. 


“I grew up listening to that kind of music,” Bertie laughs. “My mum was a real ’80s chick and would jump on a little trampoline in the morning when I was getting ready for school, blasting aerobic pop really loud. It’s one of my favourite memories.”
We’re used to Bertie Blackman zagging when we expect her to zig. Her previous release, Pope Innocent X, was an introspective affair, delving into Blackman’s bohemian childhood and personal life. Fifth album, The Dash, out in October 2014, will be the polar opposite. “I want to make people feel good,” she says. “I had a fire in my belly to write songs that represent all the things I love about music.”


With this first single, Bertie enlisted Louis Schoorl as a co-writer and sent it off to be mixed by Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, Yeah Yeah Yeahs). The rest of the album will be a buffet of co-writers and producers, which is a ruse by Bertie to bring herself out of her shell.


“It’s my coming-of-age pop record,” she says of The Dash. “Big hooks, big vocals, direct feelings. It feels like I’ve cleaned out all those cobwebs and it can stand in its own right. I’m not hiding behind anything.”

Run For Your Life

Official remix of Bertie Blackman's single 'Run For Your Life' courtesy of Melbourne artist Hopium. 

Connect with Bertie: 
www.facebook.com/bertieblackman
www.twitter.com/bertieblackman

Connect with Hopium: 
https://www.facebook.com/highonhopium
https://twitter.com/highonhopium
http://www.soundcloud.com/highonhopium/

Run For Your Life (Hopium Remix)

Official remix of Bertie Blackman's single 'Run For Your Life' courtesy of Melbourne producer Chiefs. 

Connect with Bertie: 
www.facebook.com/bertieblackman
www.twitter.com/bertieblackman

Connect with Chiefs: 
https://www.facebook.com/onechiefs
www.twitter.com/one_chiefs 
soundcloud.com/onechiefs

Run For Your Life (Chiefs Remix)

Official remix of Bertie Blackman's single 'Run For Your Life' courtesy of Perth producer Sable. 

Connect with Bertie: 
http://www.facebook.com/bertieblackman 
http://www.twitter.com/bertieblackman 

Connect with Sable: 
http://www.facebook.com/soundsable 
http://www.twitter.com/sablesound
http://www.soundcloud.com/sablemusic 

Run For Your Life (Sable Remix)

War Of One

Bertie dropped onto the bench and took a swig of, what?  Could have been whiskey, could have been juice. She’d peeled all the labels off a long time ago. Dusk. It was her favourite time: the orange eye of the sun, bored and falling fast, the empty streets, the smell of the dark winding round her legs. She curled her spine and pressed deeper into the wooden slats of the bench, like an attic ladder against her back. She settled in to watch. This was the time for shadow chasers, when hurt was in the air and the bins overflowed with silent hopes and crumpled dreams. 

She flicked through the menu on her iPod. Headway, The Only One, from the soundtrack of Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger, Black, Secrets and Lies and a cover of Peek-a-boo by Siouxsie and the Banshees. And this new one, Pope Innocent X.

Her thumb hovered over the button, one cracking eye to unleash the loneliness of everything. She hesitated. Took another swig and winced as she swallowed. Probably not juice. She pressed play and reached inside her coat for the book she’d stolen last time she went home, A Travel Guide for Foundlings with Nowhere To Go. On the title page, in red pencil, someone had scrawled ‘2009 ARIA Breakthrough Independent Artist of the Year’ and ‘2009 ARIA Best Independent Release.’ Bertie laughed as she tore out the page, flicked her lighter open and set the paper alight. She pulled out her bookmark - a dog-eared card embossed with ‘Francois Tetaz – Producer at Large’ – and started drawing the mourning light of the looming stars onto the pages. 

It was dark when she’d finished. And cold. And she was thirsty. Out of the corner of her eye, she could feel the world come alive with the fiends of the night. She fixed them with her unblinking eye and whispered I know where you’re hiding and I’m coming to get you.

bertieblackman

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