Search - Sarah Slean :: Day One

An eccentric album spanning multiple genres and moods.

D. Mok | Los Angeles, CA | 11/04/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sarah Slean is a musician who likes to shake things up. Her debut record, Blue Parade, was sublime piano-based pop with a distinct spiritual tinge. The subsequent self-titled EP was Slean's entry into the US market, but the EP and the album behind it, Night Bugs, alienated some fans with their strange, melodramatic cabaret leanings.



A longtime fan, I had responded to the EP with great disdain, but later learned to accept and even love Night Bugs on its own terms. And now Day One is likely to baffle Slean's old-guard listeners again. But just like its predecessor, it contains delights that will unfold eventually and grow on you.



How to describe this album? A little rock, a little punk, some splatterings of funk...and even sprinklings of industrial. Slean seems determined to defy any kind of pattern in her music. Night Bugs producer Hawksley Workman is out, and in step Peter Prilesnik and Dan Kurtz as producers. The resultant sound is surprising, a brash, upfront sound which contains far less of the orchestral sweep of Slean's earlier productions, and a lot more machine-like beeps and booms.



I still don't like it when they dress up Slean's voice too much as they do here. Slean's voice had a clarity in the early days which was like a splash of cool water; it's not a voice which needs a great deal of effects. But the arrangements are nice, punkier with a dash of funk, as on the almost Ramones-like beat of "Lucky Me". And Slean's strongest suit, songwriting, remains arresting. "Lucky Me" shows she can adapt to a catchy rock milieu without losing her classical and cabaret flavours; it probably ranks with Charlotte Hatherley's "Kim Wilde" as the most weirdly catchy pop/rock tunes of the year. I remember Slean's been playing "Vertigo" live in concert for a while, and it recalls her earlier, poetic, sweeping orchestral ballads -- in short, beautiful. "The Score" is a heavy, insistent piece with jarring turns and changes, and "Your Wish Is My Wish" is a quiet ballad of breathtaking wonder, with Slean's gorgeous harmonies and a piano that drips with lonely longing.



Sarah Slean's music may be a little too left of center to ever become part of the dominant pop scene, but as with her last two records, her music is slow to grab you, often initially confounding, but ultimately thrilling in its diversity and ambition. Day One is more immediately accessible than Night Bugs or the Sarah Slean EP. Dig in, and you'll find a kaleidoscope of sounds and styles which rewards repeated exploration."

Sarah Slean deserves to be 3000 times more well known than s

Michael B. Collins | Placentia, NL Canada | 06/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's been 28 years since Kate Bush first shocked the UK with her moody, experimental songwriting. It's been 14 years since Tori Amos made the piano cool again. At this point, the image of an eccentric, talented, esoteric female singer-songwriter seated at a baby grand, alternately wailing, growling, or cooing, has become one of the most enduring clichés in music.



And why not? It's a formula that sells, with proven appeal to a subset of the music-listening population. Recent years have seen a proliferation of such artists, running the gamut from Vanessa Carlteon to Charlotte Martin, from Rachel Yamagata to Regina Spektor. Sarah Slean stands out from this pack of admitted worthies, though.



If Kate Bush is the High Priestess, Tori Amos the Queen, and Fiona Apple the precocious prodigal princess with a penchant for jazz and hip-hop, then Sarah Slean is the madwoman in the attic of the castle. And I say that as a compliment --- her powers, both as a songwriter and a performer, are stunning, yet so many people live their musical lives without ever realizing she's tucked away up there in Canada, pondering philosophy, conversing with the mice and the ravens, and writing some of the best arty pop-rock of our age.



If I had to make a direct comparison, I would say she is something like an early Kate Bush with a modern spin, a similarly theatrical style, and better piano chops. And Canadian. But why make such a comparison? She has just as much in common with William Blake, really. Slean is one of the few in this genre who whole-heartedly deserves the mantle of true original.



And Day One is the fullest realization of her powers thus far. While the piano-pop set might find more to love on her second-to-most-recent album, Nightbugs (see: Elliot, Duncan, My Invitation), this rhythmic tour-de-force is both Slean at her most accessible and Slean at her artistic best.



Take the second song and first single, "Lucky Me," a moderate radio hit in Canada. This is actually an uptempo polka (of all things!) cleverly masquerading as a jaunty, catchy-as-hell pop-rock tune. And is it about, say, a relationship gone wrong? Desire? Repression? Nothing so mundane, my dears. "Lucky Me" is a thoughtful and insightful examination of the conflict between science and faith in the modern world, and the psychological (or spiritual) implications this struggle has. Heady stuff that you can tap your feet to.



And, as if this wasn't enough, Slean can craft a melody like no other. There are very few artists I have ever encountered in my wide and varied listenings who can match her for sheer sing-a-long-a-bility. Her soaring choruses and lilting verses have more hooks than a fishing tackle.



The album has a great balance of light and dark. Pilgrim, the opener, is heavy with despair and dread, while When Another Midnight is an almost frantic call to arms, urging people to remember beauty and joy in a world that is becoming increasingly chaotic, cruel, and insane.



"How to live a noble life in this, the Age of Insanity

when every prophet's face is turning white: it's the look of "can it be?"

it's shock, it's horror, it's despair!

it's Socrates weeping in a wheelchair

teacher drooling, unaware: "where, my students? where? where?"



And yet, ultimately, Day One is a celebration of joy and life in the face of such peril. The album is, essentially, about laughing in the face of darkness. The title track urges us not to let the drudgery of daily life get to us, and to seek out a rebirth of vitality and vibrancy. The sweet but touching Mary celebrates Slean's grandmother, who is "toughest of the tough / but still a lady." Out in the Park is a lilting waltz that reminds us not to forget the joy and sublime beauty one can find in little things (like feeding the birds in the park).



My own personal favourite, Vertigo, is a song that encapsulates the over-all feeling of the album, in my mind: it is a song about driving on the highway at night and feeling so happy to be alive, and yet being so afraid of dying because of that happiness. It is a conflict of emotion (joy and dread) that I often experience, but that few songwriters have examined. Slean does it, and does it masterfully.



Day One is an album that is not to be missed. In my mind, it is an equal with Tori Amos's From the Choirgirl Hotel or even Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. It is rhythmic and more accessible than Slean's earlier work (just as the those other two were for Amos and Bush), and yet it is her strongest, boldest, bravest, and most successful artistic statement to date (again, as those other two were for each respective artist). I cannot recommend it strongly enough."

A true, north star in my musical sky

James Houck | Minneapolis, MN USA | 07/05/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sarah's music and her voice have been incredibly healing for me. Regardless of our societal conceptions about the image of a man, I often cry when I hear her songs. I am also a singer songwriter and I am soooo greatful to have found her music. She has such a beautiful sound that I honestly can't describe how it makes me feel in words. Thank you Sarah for your music, i hope you know how big of an impact you can make by reaching out with your creation. I think her music would appeal to very sensitive people in transition with their lives, among any other combination of things. She paints a perspective that I feel I am living as well. Bottom line, if you are a person who feels intensly, enjoy beautiful music and emoting through sound, you should check this out.

-Jim Houck [...]"