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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Sarah Slean says time for herself gave way to the songs that comprise Day One.
Happiness is Sarah Slean.
You can hear the 27-year-old Toronto chanteuse grin over a hearty compliment from none other than Ron Sexsmith, for whom Slean�s opening on a cross-Canada tour which arrives at the Danforth Music Hall tonight.
According to Chart Magazine, the fellow Torontonian was sitting down at a piano during a St. John�s, Nfld., show when he uttered how his simple tinkling of the ivories would be a hard act to follow compared to Slean.
"Awwwww, that was so sweet of him," Slean tells Metro. "It�s been an amazing tour so far. I listen to him for an hour-and-a-half every night. He doesn�t have one bad song on him at all."
Even more complimentary, she says, is hearing a sample her hit Sweet Ones, off her 2002 major-label debut Night Bugs, being used by rapper k-os on his latest, Joyful Rebellion.
"Instead of him paying me some sort of fee to do that, I�m getting him to rap on one of my newer songs," Slean says with a laugh.
Slean admits her current upbeat frame of mind comes from a personal cleansing of sorts, which gave way to the songs that comprise Day One, her sophomore disc for Warner. In the summer of 2003, a depressed Slean isolated herself in a remote log cabin near Almonte, Ont., west of Ottawa, with nothing but nature by her side for an 18-week period.
"I had just felt stagnant, found myself increasingly cynical, and worried I had lost the ability to see rosy things, real colours," Slean says. "I didn�t really want to go to the cabin at first, but I needed to retreat to calm my mind, to redeem my sanity."
The isolation did have its revealing moments. "Late one night, I turned on a stereo really loud and just starting dancing � by myself. It was absolutely exhilarating. I discovered rhythm," Slean says gleefully.
Once Slean returned to Toronto to work on Day One, she called on producers Dan Kurtz (The New Deal) and Peter Prilesnik (Sarah Harmer) to further explore her newfound love of rhythms.
"I found rhythms are something that come naturally within all of us. And one way we learn this is through dancing, a human response to something soulful."
IAN NATHANSON/Metro Toronto
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