Bertie Blackman Featured on My Chemical Toilet

"Bertie Blackman's brain is like mush

Hey, she said it. But to be fair to her, Bertie was a tad tired at the time. BUT NOT TOO TIRED TO CHAT TO JANE BRADLEY FOR THIS HERE BLOGAZINESITE.

Yes, since I asked “Who is this Bertie Blackman person, then?” a couple of months back after encountering her splendid single “Thump”, Jane went along to have a mouthwag and find out ‘first-hand’.

They talked about Bertie’s ARIA-winning album Secrets and Lies (which is vay good), crushes on Fronch pop stars and, um, “nanimals”. BEHOLDIFY:

I became a bit smitten with Bertie Blackman while I was interviewing her. Not only is she infuriatingly talented, she’s also disarmingly charming; whimsical but self-assured, and a pleasure to natter to. By the time we meet, jetlag, exhaustion and a gruelling schedule of interviews and photoshoots have taken their toll, and I’m gobsmacked she’s still able string a slurred sentence together.

“My brain is like mush,” she explains. “This feels like it’s all a dream.” Guessing that I best take advantage of her whilst she’s still awake, and better still, amiable and articulate, we press on in all haste.

In swotting up about her before the interview, I read about an art exhibition she’s having in her native Australia comprising weird and wonderful large-scale ink illustrations of deformed woodland animals. Thinking this is a suitably abstract opening gambit, I ask her for an explanation:

“The exhibition came about unintentionally, after I designed the stage set for the Australian Secrets and Lies tour. I’d been drawing these ‘nanimals,’ which is my word for creatures that are not quite animals. And then I painted them onto plywood and made them into a giant mobile hung from fishing wire around the stage."

Continue reading the interview on My Chemical Toilet here