From: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org (navy-soup-digest) To: navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Subject: navy-soup-digest V9 #11 Reply-To: navy-soup@smoe.org Sender: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk navy-soup-digest Sunday, December 17 2006 Volume 09 : Number 011 In This Digest: ----------------- jam article [wojbearpig ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:44:05 -0500 From: wojbearpig Subject: jam article Slean's 'Orphan' songs find a home By MARK DANIELL -- For JAM! Music TORONTO - Five albums into her career, 29-year-old singer-songwriter Sarah Slean is sure of one thing. "I'm more certain than I've ever been that I'm just not conventional," she says between sips of water in a suite overlooking the downtown core. "I will never make a conventional record because... I just don't think that it's in me. "So far," she goes on, "any mistakes I've made is not having listened to my instincts and being afraid of the wildness or the unusual nature of some of the things I want to hear." Back in Toronto after an extended stay in Paris, the Pickering native is preparing for a handful of dates (including a pair at Harbourfront Centre this weekend) and gabbing about her latest disc - "Orphan Music." Part studio album, part live recording, the record captures a smattering of new tunes and delves into Slean's back catalogue with an assembly of tracks recorded in concert at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre and Vancouver's East Cultural Centre in support of 2004's "Day One" last year. "Those shows had a particular magic," she gushes. "And I think it had everything to do with the audiences. There was such energy with those two shows. I could really feel it and hear it on those two recordings." But rather than dish out a full-length live album, Slean decided to head back into the studio and add some new material into the mix. "I had these songs I thought had little kernels of beauty in them. So I thought I'd just put them all together. "They were very much like little orphan stragglers," she laughs, "which is why I called the record 'Orphan Music.'" Recorded in Toronto and the UK, bare-boned new songs, like "Little London" and "California," soak Slean's cabaret-style vocals in a honeyed sweetness that's one part Kate Bush and another Regina Spektor, while live takes of "Lucky Me" and "The Score" feature eerily sweet flourishes that recall Rufus Wainwright's piano balladry. "You know, Glen Gould used to say that he thought an audience was a force of evil, which I find really funny," she says. "I don't know what it is, but I find that what I get from my audiences is acceptance. "They come inside longing to be lifted, so it makes it that much easier to lift them. And that's all I'd ever expect from people coming to my show to want." As a pre-lunchtime crowd snakes its way towards Cumberland Street in Yorkville, when Slean hears the comparisons to both Ms. Spektor and Mr. Wainwright, she uses that as a launching pad to talk about what she thinks people want from today's pop musicians. "The aesthetic of Rufus and Regina," she says, "is a window opening to the theatricality of music." Those musicians resonate, she says, because audiences are using their imagination again. "They want things like the drama of opera in music." And after her stint abroad, Slean, who received a Gemini nomination for her portrayal of Eve Hardwick in the noir musical "Black Widow" earlier this fall, is looking forward to dipping her artistic pen in a variety of creative inkwells. In addition to polishing off her degree in music and philosophy, she's readying work on her next record, which she hopes to have out sometime in 2007. "I have a lot of material that I wrote when I was in Paris," she smiles, "so my next album is being conceived; it's being born." She's even itching to perhaps get in front of the camera again. "I'd love to continue acting," Slean enthuses. "It was terrifying and at times I really felt like a fish out of water, but I love doing things that scare me. That's how I learn. "My decision to go to Paris, too, was the same. I wasn't like; 'I want to go to Paris so I can find brilliant art.' It was more like; 'I'm going to go to Paris 'cause it's a scary thing for me to do.' "It had been a dream of mine for many years, but mainly it was a challenge, it was scary. And I find that every time I do something like that, my art grows or it changes. I think that life is better lived under your belt. And the life aspect is what makes music good. "So that's why I went." Sarah Slean performs at Harbourfront Centre December 15 and 16, and Vancouver's Stanley Theatre on December 18. ------------------------------ End of navy-soup-digest V9 #11 ******************************