The troubadour has been idealized and mythologized through the years, but few of those to whom the word has been applied have actually earned it. Sarazin Blake is the real deal, a storyteller with a guitar and a head full of ideas who roams the land playing his tunes for any open-minded human with a matching set of ears. For the past decade—during which he was known, until now, as Robert Sarazin Blake, or just plain Robert Blake (he dropped the first name to avoid confusion with a certain Hollywood actor)—the Bellingham, Wash.-based singer-songwriter has made his way across the States and back who knows how many times, and found an enthusiastic audience in Ireland too. Now, on his newest self-produced album, The Air Your Lungs Forced Out (Same Room Records), Sarazin Blake is poised to take his music to the next level.

“It’s definitely more mature, a little more reflective, a little more distant,” says Blake about the new release, his sixth full-length solo effort. “The early works are a little more about emotion in the moment, whereas this album really is reflective.”

The songs on The Air Your Lungs Forced Out, hyper-literate Blake classics-to-be like “After the Afternoon,” “India or Spain,” “New Orleans” and “Fat and Skinny,” were all written one recent fall in a cabin in the woods outside of Bellingham. Then, as with all of his previous releases, the music was recorded live in the studio sans overdubs, with the musicians—Blake (acoustic guitar), Mike Grigoni (pedal steel guitar, Dobro), Josh Brahinsky (upright bass), and Jordan Rain (drums)—gathered intimately around one another. “That’s been a big part of my ethic and my essence,” says Blake about his no-frills method.

For Sarazin Blake the journey to The Air Your Lungs Forced Out, one that has seen him log countless miles and as many experiences along the way, began in Seattle 31 years ago. Listening to his father, himself a musician, gave Blake the impetus to follow his own artistic path. In addition to learning the traditional folk canon and the songs of greats—Dylan, Leonard Cohen, John Prine, Joni Mitchell, etc.—Blake immediately began writing his own songs. “Learning old songs and the songs of my peers is a big part of my work,” he says. “I’ve played in various bluegrass/irish/swing/roots-america bands over the years and I’ve always enjoyed learning other people’s songs. In fact, that’s how I learned to write”

“My dad was a songwriter so I always thought of myself that way,” he adds. Blake was given his first guitar for his 14th birthday and but he’d been singing with his dad since he was 5. At age 15, performed his own songs at the 1992 Seattle Folklife festival. Then, after spending two years at Western Washington University, he dropped out and recorded his first album, in a neighbor’s basement.

Blake’s first album of all-original material, Another Irrelevant Year, was released in 1997. In its wake have come several other albums under his own name, one as a member of the High, Wide and Handsome Band, and a split CD with Philadelphia folkpunk legend Erik Petersen aka Mischief Brew. Wordsmith giants such as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Greg Brown have provided him with inspiration. “When I hear great songwriters, it brings me to a very real place inside myself,” says Blake. “That’s where I try to write from. I guess it’s a way of bringing the outside world into the personal world.” In addition to the previous greats, Blake is inspired by his peers. “One of the best things about being on the road is meeting great musicians, and being inspired by their work. Touring and collaborating with Anais Mitchell, Louis Ledford, and Rachel Ries, has reaffirmed my belief in the power of songs.’

Blake has been living in Bellingham , in the northwest corner of the country, since the age of 18. He prefers the quietude of the region to the bustling cities. “Originally, I came here because I had a cousin who worked at the 3B Tavern and she told me it had a good music scene,” he says. “It turned out to be true. College towns, compared to big cities, are generally more open-minded musically. All the musicians have to hang together a bit more rather than get divided into cliques. Then, I started a music festival here, the Subdued Stringband Jamboree, that’s going on its ninth year this year. Now my fate is sealed. For four months out of the year, I’m tied to Bellingham.”

All of the material for the new album was written at home in a borrowed cabin outside of Bellingham. “A lot of the cities I’ve visited have definitely crept into my tunes,” Blake explains. “People say, ‘You must write a lot on the road,’ but I don’t write on the road at all because I’m always running around. But it definitely all comes into the subconscious, which comes out in the work.”

Although the songs aren’t created during his travels, Blake has always spent much of his time making the rounds from town to town, offering his music in both traditional and not-so-traditional venues. That’s both by design and because many music establishments simply don’t know what to do with an artist who defies pigeonholing the way Blake does. His songs have been described as “meta-biographical” and “bookended stream-of-consciousness,” hardly labels one finds bandied about in the world of commercial music.

His work has always defied easy description. “My music has never fully settled in the folk world,” Blake says. “One promoter told me, ‘You’re too wild! You need to choose, will you be folk or will you be punk?! The punk world has been more accepting—bands like the Mountain Goats and Against Me! have opened a lot of ears to acoustic music. Still, there were many nights on my early tours where I was on bills with three or four hardcore bands. They often tried to get me to play while they set up behind me-it hasn’t been an easy road. I’m immersed in the folk tradition, the ballads and such, but I mix that with the punk rock essence that surrounded me as I grew musically.”

Whatever people want to call it, ultimately they will find that there’s no one else quite like him. With his unique guitar style, which Blake describes as “a mixture of a Richie Havens’ ‘fast-strumming’ style with a heavy-handed rhythmic approach, mixed with a noise/jazz improv aspect,” to his bold, authoritative vocal approach, Blake comes on strong and assured. His songs, by their very nature, demand intent listening.

And in the end it’s those songs, and the tales within, that shine through. “When I was developing my art I found as a listener that if there wasn’t a story, I didn’t care,” he says.

As a lyricist, Blake prefers highly visual imagery that stokes the listener’s brain cells and leaves an indelible impression. In the new album’s opening track, “After the Afternoon,” he writes, “I heard you lips open up your mouth/I heard the air your lungs forced out/I heard the handle/I touched your sleeve/I heard your feet on the leaves.” In “Midterm Elections,” Blake comments on the bill of goods sold to Americans by those we elected (in the pre-Obama world) to represent us, while songs like “Mopping” and “Flying” reflect the intimate lives and thoughts of the songs’ characters. In the latter, Blake places an unexpected twist at the end of one verse: “I’ve been thinking about flying over foreign seas,” he sings, but then qualifies his dream: “I’ve been thinking about flying, and I don’t want to take you with me.” “Fat and Skinny,” meanwhile, is all about perception: “When I was fat and you were skinny, thought we had a new beginning/I gave you a dove, you received a rat, when you were skinny and I was fat.”

“The stories are definitely my stories and the stories of what’s going on around me,” says Blake. “It’s fairly personal.” The Air Your Lungs Forced Out is indeed very personal, the most fully realized statement yet from one of the most gifted troubadours of our time.