Kevin Bronson on June 21st, 2016

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The lush, plainspoken songs of Amy Blaschke come from an absolute truth: Sadness is going strike, sometimes with both barrels blazing, and it’s all about how you negotiate the truce. “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,” she says. “Music’s such an incredible way to keep from getting downhearted, and to have somewhere meaningful to put that melancholy.” Barely eight months after releasing her last album, the Seattle-bred, L.A.-based singer-songwriter has produced another refuge, her sixth album “Breaking the Blues” (out July 1). Made with producer Brian Whelan and engineer Mark Rains, it’s the follow-up to 2015’s “Opaline” and is the result of a trying but prolific time in Blaschke’s life.

“The year I wrote this new material was one of my hardest ever, as far as my physical well-being,” says Blaschke, who struggles with Lyme disease. “I had to step away from a lot of things and be much less active, but at the same time my creativity felt really vibrant. Music was like a sanctuary, and it ended up being the fastest I’ve ever written a new body of work.” The new song “Running My Heart to You” is exemplary of Blaschke’s craft: a seemingly effortless melody over strummed guitar and embellished with piano swirls. “Can you take me to that higher place?” she asks hopefully, sounding almost as if she knows the answer. Which is that the blues can’t be broken, only bent.

||| Stream: “Running My Heart to You”

||| Also: Stream the new song “Under My Skin”

||| Live: Amy Blaschke plays Grand Ole Echo at the Echo on Sunday.

||| Previously: “Come See About Loving Me,” “What I’m Asking Of”