B l u e P a r a d e - A S a r a h S l e a n F a n s i t e
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By John Teshima
Sarah Slean has an alter ego named Emily, who lives in France, needs new shoes and drinks too much.
Now before you get too confused, in her regular life Slean is a talented Toronto-based singer-songwriter. She has just released her major label debut album, Night Bugs, a masterful integration of musical theatre melodramatics and sophisticated pop.
So where does Emily enter into things?
It appears that Slean uses the persona of Emily as a means of establishing some necessary distance from the material she writes and sings. Emily is in essence a psychological device that allows Slean to express ideas that she might not have been able to otherwise.
"She can say the things that I�m not brave enough to say," explains Slean. "The truth about myself that perhaps I don�t want to hear or admit to, I have to say it through Emily."
Emily can become so real that Slean�s style of singing takes on a whole new character.
"Sometimes my voice takes on an older French feeling," Slean acknowledges. "It�s Emily. It comes from her throat."
In addition to Emily, a number of other characters inhabit Slean�s songs, from the flirtatious vamp in "Sweet Ones" to the moneyed materialist in "Bank Accounts." Slean brings these characters and their stories vividly to life, unfailingly drawing the listener into their world.
"I try to create a place with the song," she explains, "a place where you can feel the colours around you, the kind of characters hanging around you in the bar, and whether they have pocket watches or umbrellas, and whether they�re nice to their mothers. I want to have a scene that I can feel. My favourite artists can do that: Joni Mitchell, T.S. Eliot, Tom Waits."
The richness and diversity of Slean�s music may prove difficult to slot into commercial radio. However, Slean has not experienced any pressure from her record company to mould herself into the next Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette or Britney Spears.
"I was pretty clear from the beginning that I have no desire to be that," Slean says. "I�m simply interested in making stuff, be it visual art, songs, musicals or film scores. I�ve been really up front with Warner about that. And they�ve been really good about it. They said, �Hey man, go play in the paints.�"
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