BLAKE HAZARD POSSIBILITIES AT SEA OUT NOW
Blake spent the first part of 2017 releasing a series of singles and remixes – “Before The Ice,” “Oh Anatolia,” and “Hey.” Along the way she garnered accolades from the likes of Flaunt who labeled her “the quintessentially rootless musician, a true citizen of the world” and Blackbook who noted her “ability to marry sweetness and melancholy in a genuinely affecting and visceral way.” Flood said she “tantalizes.” Previously KCRW has said her music “spans from pop bliss to a raw mood and vision” and Under The Radar has hailed its “raw, meditative reflection.”
Blake Hazard, one half of the LA based indie pop duo, The Submarines, has finally emerged into the California sunlight. Having forged an intricate if rough-hewn account of the break-up between herself and her co-Submarine on her first solo outing The Eleanor Islands ( produced and recorded by Sam Cohen in his Brooklyn studio ), Hazard found herself unable to tour or play shows to promote the album. “I suppose I just felt disheartened,” Hazard says, “Everything had come to a screeching halt in my life with my relationship and the music we made. The only thing I knew how to do was make a record about it. And when that was done, I was well and truly adrift.” A year passed, with Hazard working only in studios, and lending guest vocals to projects like OWSLA’s M Machine, and Eligh and Amplive. Then one night at a dance party she met the storybook tall, dark, handsome stranger who would whisk her off to foreign lands. She lived more than a year in Istanbul, learning the language and exploring the city. “The darkly romantic feel of Istanbul, the nostalgia and the youthful energy that collide there – the old and the new – have a very healing way about them. To cross the foggy Bosporous on an early morning ferry with some old fellow playing Arabesque music on the bench beside you is probably the best medicine a hopeless romantic could ask for.” The relationship that brought her there came to an end, but, she returned to Los Angeles with new energy and something to say about love and hope.
The songs came slowly at first, but after connecting with friend and producer Thom Monahan (Wild Nothing, Vetiver) and setting a date to record in Blake’s dream scenario – mostly live on a studio floor with a band of relative strangers – the songs came in a torrent. “I’ve always wished I could write that way – songs that people say ‘write themselves.’ Songwriting has always been far more arduous for me, but somehow these songs just kept appearing. They came so quickly and somehow so confidently that I didn’t question it.
Thom and Blake took the tracks back to his home studio and finished the recording there, bringing in a few guest players and singers. In the end, this approach yielded a collection of vintage tinged tunes with a kind of mellow glow. Hazard says, “I’ve never felt simultaneously more calm and more excited as I have while recording these singles. I’d been in such a place of sadness and loss and came out of it wanting to help everyone else through whatever hard times they might be going through. It might sound silly, but, I wanted to be that voice you need to hear telling you everything’s going to be ok. I believe in you, and you will always be loved.”
lake’s musical career began while she was in her teens by playing in New York City subways. She eventually graduated to playing smaller clubs and then made her way to Boston to study at Harvard University. There she continued to play live, and eventually met John Dragonetti (Jack Drag). They duo moved to Los Angeles, and broke up in 2005. After hearing the songs that each had written about their parting, they reunited to form The Submarines. The Subs went on to make three records and remix EPs for the Canadian label Nettwerk Records.
