Amy Blaschke

On her sixth studio album Breaking the Blues, Seattle-born singer/songwriter Amy Blaschke brings her exquisitely nuanced sensibilities to a more expansive sound than she’s ever explored before. With her graceful sense of melody, Blaschke’s intricate and guitar-heavy take on folk-rock captures the subtlest of feelings, including—on the title track—the inherent push-and-pull between beauty and pain. “If you’re of a melancholy disposition, it takes a lifetime to figure out how to use that energy constructively and not turn it against yourself,” says Blaschke of the quietly triumphant “Breaking the Blues.” “Music’s such an incredible way to keep from getting downhearted, and to have somewhere meaningful to put that melancholy.”