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 Mike Bell
Some people infuriate with their ambition.
And talent.
And charm.
Toronto singer-songwriter Sarah Slean, who performs tonight at the Artspace as part of the Esther Honens A440 concert series, is one of those people.
Not content with just being an exceptional painter, or having just released her full-length, major label debut entitled Night Bugs, the multi-talented artist is now setting her sights on something grander.
"I have a life list, you see, and it gives me great satisfaction to cross things off," Slean says from her T.O. apartment.
"And one of them happens to be writing a musical."
The musical, which she's been working on for the past couple of months when she hasn't been touring the lush, cabaret piano pop album, is called Boy Wonder.
It's literally about a young child named Boy Wonder who gets lost.
The obvious metaphor is one that germinated into the idea for the play from Slean's love of the film Fight Club, of all things.
"It's loosely based on the themes of Fight Club," she says.
"I thought that that was such a literary movie, because on so many levels it says such very strong things.
"I wanted to paint the same picture of a world that has become numb to wonder ... That feeling that we actually have to beat each other up to feel."
For her part, 24-year-old Slean, who has been likened to everyone from Sarah McLachlan to Tori Amos, is content to let her art and, especially, her music deliver the blows.
She wants to and succeeds at giving people something different from the norm, helping shake that sense of wonder back into their lives.
"I think that's what beauty and truth are supposed to do, they're supposed to wake you up," Slean says.
"They're supposed to pop your eyeballs out and give them a good rinsing."
That's definitely not something that she finds in much of mainstream culture -- Fight Club, excepted -- especially not on Canadian radio.
Slean thinks most of the songs on the airwaves are shallow products of corporate greed.
Does she want to offer any examples and name names?
"No," she laughs. "Because I'm a coward."
But doesn't she want to wake people up with the truth?
"If they can't smell it, they're way beyond my help."
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