ctkurtis
A pop genius singing about being a genius pop! Been on the Bleu train since redhead came out. Always blown away, never disappointed.
Favorite track: Kid Someday.
Andy Levine
#SiXTape is f*ckin' FABULOUS!!! Only listened once and its already ranking up there with Redhead and Four. EVERYTHING you could want from a Bleu album...EVERYTHING...smart, clever (and funny!) lyrics, all the jingle jangle of pop and all the lush orchestrations we've grown accustomed to. It says it all when his B-sides/throwaways/Bonus tracks would make a top selling LP for anyone else on their own....just FANTASTIC
Favorite track: Snakes.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
**Includes 5 mastered digital BONUS SONGS:
...
"JOBS," "Wife Me," "Alive & Well," "The Animator" (SiX TAPE b-sides)
*Nobody Calls it Rock'n'Roll Anymore* (early unreleased Redhead-era deep vault track)
...
Bonus Songs deliver automatically with your purchase, and appear here after the album.
Bonus Songs above will NOT APPEAR ON iTunes/Spotify/Amazon, and are ONLY available here on Bandcamp.
Purchasable with gift card
$13.66USD or more
Poster/Print + Digital Album
ART PRiNT designed by BLEU:
This is a fine art screen print featuring silver metallic ink and red flaked ink (designed specifically for this purpose), hand signed and numbered by BLEU. ONLY 50 of these specific prints will be available. Comes with SiX TAPE album + 5 Bonus Songs.
Print Details:
12x12 art print on 100lb paper, ships safely in a flat cardboard mailer
Screen printed by LA's Print Renegades
Will ship via First Class Mail
Includes unlimited streaming of SiX TAPE
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
edition of 50
$36.66USDor more
REAL VHS version of SiX TAPE hand created by BLEU:
SiX TAPE + bonus songs on VHS as a visual album PLUS surprise video content!
Includes digital album / bonus songs.
VHS INCLUDES: an actual collectible VHS video tape and case, complete with authentic style artwork, all SiX TAPE songs set to video content, and bonus historic "Vault" video footage not available anywhere else!
Ships via First Class Mail
Includes unlimited streaming of SiX TAPE
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 7 days
edition of 30
$116.66USDor more
Painting/Assemblage made by BLEU:
This will be an actual piece of artwork on canvas, handmade by Bleu. Suitable for hanging/display, this 3D art will feature a real VHS tape, “wax”-lips, and hand painted canvas. Signed and personalized by the artist (front or back, your choice), this unique piece is the ultimate collectible to accompany this unique album.
(image displayed here is a one-off mockup, each piece will have one-of-a-kind variations at the artist's discretion)
Comes with SiX TAPE album + 5 Bonus Songs.
Will ship boxed via Priority Mail USA, First Class International
Includes unlimited streaming of SiX TAPE
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 15 days
edition of 6
2 remaining
$256.66USDor more
SiX TAPE online Zoom Release pARty + Album + 5 Bonus Songs
Ticket
Join Bleu's "SiX TAPE" online Zoom Release pARty, mini-performance, plus studio chiLL, and Q&A on September 10th at 5pm PST!
With this ticket, you will also receive SiX TAPE + the 5 Bonus Songs - sweeet!
Includes unlimited streaming of SiX TAPE
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
With the arrival of his sixth studio album SiX TAPE,
Bleu again proves his talent for weaving lyrical cunning into exuberant cross-genre pop songs.
…Featuring his popular single “Love You So,” SiX TAPE finds the “Boston in LA” artist opening up about fatherhood, religion, and “growing up,” while building a passionately curated collage of mostly upbeat pop sounds. With songs inspired by ELO, Prince, Dire Straits, and Carl Carlton, SiX TAPE unabashedly plays like a well-worn 90’s cassette mixtape.
“I’m over ‘figuring out who I am’” says Bleu. “I like a mish-mosh of music, just like most people do, and when I’m writing songs for myself, I’m only focused on what will put a sh*t eating grin on my face and not really worrying about the rest.”
Another self-produced album, SiX TAPE features collaborations with Lindsey Ray – Nashville based indie ingénue and sync queen, on the album’s must-listen duet “Chasin’,” plus co-writers Taylor Locke (Rooney/Sparks/Train) on “Never Believe It” and Isaac Bolivar aka Izzy Fontaine (Seal/Banks) on “My Emo GF.” Mr. McGinty (Jesse McGinty), one of LA’s most sought-after session players (Pharrell, Lizzo), makes multiple appearances as a co-writer and instrumentalist on some of the album’s most upbeat tracks “Baby By Your Side,” “Love You So,” & “A Crazy Life!”
“If my memory serves, ‘Never Believe It’ was written on a day when the intention was to get a song that I would sing/produce/release,” says Taylor Locke. “But I'm really glad it turned into a Bleu song instead! We spent most of the session developing the Dire Straits-esque track. We knew we were going to have a long, dramatic intro, lots of big tom fills, and then drop down to a riff that would be evocative of Mark Knopfler. For the chorus, we went more ELO. I don't think Bleu and I have ever worked on something together in which we DIDN'T talk about Jeff Lynne a whole lot! Having said that, I'd like to point out that the "science vs religion" content is something Jeff Lynne would never touch. I think it's a satisfying thing that Bleu often does, where you're seemingly inside a well-worn genre, but the subject matter and lyrical tone are totally contemporary and individualistic.”
As for the art of “not chasing” in life, or one’s musical career, Lindsey Ray has this to say about the album’s only duet, “For me, “Chasin’” is about recognizing what a waste of time it is chasing ANYTHING in life, because truthfully the chase itself is an attempt at controlling something that can’t actually be controlled, and when we try to control things that are out of our control, it will always result in some sort of suffering. I was at a place in my life where this was finally becoming very clear to me and I was making a choice to be done with that way of living.”
SiX TAPE, mostly written well before 2020 and originally meant to be an album of collaborations, has taken its time to come together, and morphed into something new and more personal than it was originally meant to be. Fatherhood put the kai-bosh on the constant collabs, and from this new stage of life comes the intimate immediacy of “Kid Someday,” which encapsulates all the excitement of someone who just found out they’re about to have their first child. No less personal though is the record’s energetic highlight track “A Crazy Life!” written and recorded with Mr. McGinty entirely remotely during the pandemic. Bleu describes in detail the high and low-lights of living “a crazy life” and following your fam on that journey even if it’s “psycho.”
The kaleidoscopic soundscapes presented on this collection perfectly reflect Bleu’s musical journey, which includes past albums of power-pop (Redhead, on Columbia Records), pure homage (the Jeff Lynne obsessed collective L.E.O.), and electro indie-pop on his last self-release “To Hell With You.” Bleu is infamous for delivering multi-genre collections, but on this album, it’s worn as a badge of honor. Whether it’s daring or not, he’d rather entertain you with variety than stay in one lane that would inevitably feel forced by song SiX.
credits
released August 6, 2021
All songs produced & mixed by Bleu
Additional engineering & mixing by Ducky Carlisle
Track 2 co-produced by Mr Jesse McGinty, Track 6 co-produced by Taylor Locke.
All songs written by Bleu. Featuring co-writers Mr Jesse McGinty, Lindsey Ray, Taylor Locke, Isaac Bolivar, Ryan Perez-Daple, Brooke Tomlinson, Frederick J. Kron. Bonus Songs feature co-writers Ethan Burns and Rob Cantor.
...although Love You So and I Wanna Write You A Symphony have been released previously as singles, these album specific versions have been lovingly remixed and remastered.
Mastered by Jeff Lipton at Peerless Mastering
**Bonus Songs: will not appear on iTunes/Apple/Spotify/Amazon etc., they are exclusive to the Bandcamp version of SiX TAPE
SiX TAPE will be available digitally "on all platforms" 9/16/21
This is a pitch perfect cover album (along with Here Comes the Reign Again). I'm hoping for a pseudo 90's cover collection next. Seriously, I listen to a lot of covers, and this is great. Great artists, great song choices, great renditions. Great! reaperzer0
Tamar Berk pairs trenchant autobiographical lyrics with brittle guitars for songs that will win over fans of early Liz Phair. Bandcamp New & Notable May 8, 2022
An ambitious pop song cycle about human loneliness and fear, thick with harmonies and buoyed by tight musicianship. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 27, 2018
XTC had their moment in time...this recording extends it...Full of small, tight , quirky songs it juz rolls along. Recommended but maybe only for XTC fans.. cwhitney