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
|
By MIKE ROSS
There's nothing like a good soul-baring, angst-ridden, spooky singer-songwriter. This sort of thing never goes out of style - especially when you consider the spectacular results from Sarah Slean.
Citing "existential malaise," she gave away most of her worldly possessions and lived like a monk in a remote cabin in the woods for four months.
She had nothing but mice and a piano for company. Result: A brilliant album called Day One. It's up for a Juno Award next month in the new "adult alternative" category. Where else would you put a weirdo genius like Rufus Wainwright? Slean fits right in there. She plays tomorrow night at the Myer Horowitz Theatre. Alternative adults should be pleased.
"Uh oh, I'm an adult now," she laughs, then sings the song.
Eerily, this Sarah is reminiscent of another Sarah many years ago, one who suffered from a similar spiritual crisis and likewise sweetly surrendered herself to arboreal solitude so she could recover her muse. Result: A nifty little record called Surfacing. As you know, that Sarah went on to become queen of all spooky sensitive singer-songwriters.
The cycle of the true artist is revealed: Suffering, work, art, rest, repeat.
When Slean underwent a clean sweep of her karmic cellar, she didn't do it to get ideas for a new album. They just came on their own - in the dark forest.
"That was the place where all these things were cracking out of their little eggs, the dark place," she says.
"It struck me one day that, wow, I gave away everything I had and tried to trim my life to the bare essentials and I still had the piano. Hmm, that's a lot of significant information about yourself. During those days in the intense quiet, so much was erupting inside me, so many pictures and characters and melodies, it was completely starting to teem. I think it was because I had quieted my mind."
Slean says she played and wrote and painted every day, and in doing so began to see the world not as a sick place, but a beautiful place. Flawed, of course, but beautiful.
"I was just figuring stuff out," she goes on. "A lot of my despair was based on things that I now realize aren't as malicious as I thought they were. It was the superficiality of the world and specifically my place in it - especially in the music industry which seems to be about vanity and not much else. I couldn't reconcile that with who I wanted to be, and I didn't understand it as being a noble existence, and that was bothering me."
More than once during a recent phone interview, Slean refers to Buddhism. Giving away your stuff, quieting your mind, meditating in solitude, drinking too much and crying yourself to sleep - these are steps of the path of the Buddha. Well, maybe not that last one.
She speaks of transcendent experiences: Radiohead's OK Computer, "which saved my life," and the voice of Judy Garland, "which exemplifies the spirit of triumph over adversity." The face of God - a female God, Slean says - can be seen in great art, the only purpose of which is to "teach beauty in the present moment and fix that moment in time."
This spooky sensitive singer-songwriter has many such heavy thoughts and isn't afraid to share them.
But after a healing stay in the mysterious world of self-reflection, life goes on. There are record contracts to fulfil, gigs to play, bills to pay. Slean knew when it was time to get back at it. The mice told her.
She laughs, "I have this pattern in my life of infestation telling me to move on. The mice came - and it's happened more than once in my life. I used to live in a house with three other roommates in a great section of Toronto. We had the best time. But at the end of three years, something started to feel not quite right and mice infested the house. So I left. In the cabin, the weather started getting colder and the same thing happened. I'd wake up and hear all this scurrying. Sure enough, they were coming in, 'Sarah, time to go!' Some of them got their poor little necks snapped, but I listened."
And is she all better now? Short answer: Yes, for now. But as any true artist knows, the time will come again to suffer for one's art. There is no cure for existential malaise. Only symptomatic relief.
Says Slean, "The busier I am, the less time I have to reflect on it, but it will come back, I'm sure. And I will have to do something drastic at that point as well."
Like make another great album? Bring it on.
|