EP Focus: Bloom

It's not everyday you are invited to a 30th birthday party and an EP launch, but that is what talented Perth-based vocalist Bloom did at the Ellington Jazz Club last week.

 The cosy venue was host to a small, but appreciative crowd as Bloom sang her self-titled debut album with passion, humour and at times a sense of melancholy.

Bloom, real name Amanda Canzurlo, says her start in the business is a clichéd one, but one she doesn't regret.

"It's that clichéd story that I have been doing it since I was 4, which started off as a hobby but it was forced upon me and my parents would tell me to go and sing.

"When I was in my teens it became a hobby but I didn't have confidence at first and it scared me and then I joined bands and saw bands in pubs.

"The stage fright stuck with me for a very long time, it has only been in the last year I have been comfortable on stage, but before that I would think silly things like, 'am I good enough, am I pretty enough?'

"I think it is a maturity thing and as you mature you get more comfortable with yourself and I just think, 'well I am getting up there and this will have to be good enough and hopefully they will like me'." Bloom says her inspiration for taking singing and songwriting seriously came from the heart.

"All of the songs are about either love, loss or death, very dark topics because that is what I can write about.

"Cheating Heart is about my own experiences and Ghost is about an accident at Bibra Lake.

"Some people went to work on Monday morning and a girl said goodbye to her fiancé then got hit by a car on North Lake Road. He saw the accident and rang his fiancé and then went back to the scene and realised it was her.

"I didn't even know these people but the whole day I was sad and I wrote Ghost from the perspective of the person who has gone and the other half of the song about the person left."

Bloom's self-titled debut EP will be available online from December 10 on iTunes and most online platforms.

Originally published in X-Press Magazine.