Sarah Slean
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Sarah Hope Slean (born on 21 June 1977) is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Pickering, Ontario.
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[edit] Education and careers
A former York University student, she is also an accomplished painter and photographer. She recorded her first album Universe at the age of 19 and has since completed three other albums, Blue Parade (1998), Night Bugs (2002), and Day One (2004). Night Bugs was her first major label album, co-produced by Slean and Hawksley Workman, and released by WEA in Canada and Atlantic Records in the United States. It was heavily inspired by cabaret music. On September 28, 2004, Sarah Slean released her fourth album, Day One. Here Slean's piano takes a less important spot for the first time in her career. The focus is more on beats, rhythms and guitar, which shines through in the album's first single, the cheeky "Lucky Me". The up-tempo title track "Day One", and "Mary", a song about Slean's grandmother, were released as second and third singles respectively.
In October of 2006, Sarah released a mostly-live album Orphan Music that consists of songs recorded live at Toronto's Harbourfront Theatre and Vancouver's East Cultural Centre. There are also tracks recorded in the studio that are bare recordings of Sarah and the piano at DNA Recording in Toronto and Kensaltown Studios in the UK.
She is probably most notable for a track on Night Bugs, a piano-heavy pop tune called "Sweet Ones". She was also featured on the Fox TV network as the pianist in Sunrise, the fictional town where bodies started piling up in Murder in Small Town X, a Reality TV foray.
[edit] Filmography
In late 2004, she filmed Black Widow, a film noir musical based on the Evelyn Dick murder case. It premiered in September 2005 on the film festival circuit and on CBC Television in January 2006.
- Black Widow (2005)
[edit] Discography
| Cover Art | Release Date | Title | Details | Format | Label |
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1997 (Cassette)
1998 (CD) |
Universe | EP | independent release | |
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August 17, 1998 | Blue Parade | LP | independent release | |
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July 17, 2001 | Sarah Slean EP | EP | WEA / Atlantic Records | |
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March 19, 2002 | Night Bugs | LP | WEA / Atlantic Records | |
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September 28, 2004 | Day One | LP | WEA / Atlantic Records | |
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July 6, 2004 | Lucky Me | Single | WEA / Atlantic Records | |
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November 16, 2004 | When Another Midnight (featuring K-OS) | features hip-hop artist K-OS | Single | WEA / Atlantic Records |
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August 9, 2005 | Mary | Improbable Pop Radio Mix, not the Day One version. | Single | WEA / Atlantic Records |
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October 31, 2006 | Orphan Music | Live album with newly recorded studio versions of her songs | Live Album | WEA / Atlantic Records |
[edit] Radio Releases
- "Sweet Ones" (2002)
- "Weight" (2002)
- "Duncan" (2003)
- "Lucky Me" (2004)
- "Day One" (2005)
- "Mary" (2005)
- "Somebody's Arms" (2005)
[edit] Music Videos
- "Weight" (1998)
- "High" (2000)
- "Sweet Ones" (2002)
- "Lucky Me" (2004)
- "Day One" (2005)
- "Mary" (2005)
[edit] Cover Songs
Quite often, Sarah pays homage to her favourite artists by performing a cover song in concert or on recording. Here are some of them:
- Always - Irving Berlin (sung with Tory Cassis)
- BeautifulFeeling - PJ Harvey
- Black Boys on Mopeds - Sinéad O'Connor
- Bulletproof, I Wish I Was - Radiohead
- Butterfly - Weezer
- A Case of You - Joni Mitchell
- Climbing up the Walls - Radiohead
- Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
- The Difference is Why - Lenny Kravitz
- The Drugs Don't Work - The Verve
- Edelweiss - Rodgers and Hammerstein (from the Sound of Music))
- El Scorcho - Weezer
- God's Song - Randy Newman
- I'll Never Smile Again - Ruth Lowe (popularized by Frank Sinatra)
- I'm Only Sleeping - The Beatles
- Julia - Our Lady Peace
- Lilac Wine - J. Shelton (cover of Jeff Buckley's cover)
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland
- Sunny Side of the Street - Louis Armstrong
- Us & Them - Pink Floyd
- Wayfaring Stranger - Neko Case
- What Child is This? - William Chatterton Dix, though now simply a traditional song
- Woodstock - Joni Mitchell
[edit] Trivia
- When Our Lady Peace performed the live "piano" version of their song "Julia" (originally guitar-driven and fast-paced), vocalist Raine Maida explained the origins of the downtempo rendition: "We’re gonna do a song from our first record now, that was given to us on a cassette tape, a very different version, from a girl named Sarah Slean from Toronto..." [1]
- She wrote an unreleased song, "Rockstar", about Raine Maida.
- She is a big fan of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, and wrote two songs about him: the unreleased "Glenn Gould Song" and "Before Your Time", which appeared on her album Blue Parade.
- She went to Dunbarton High School in Pickering, along with songstress Lindi Ortega.
[edit] External links
- Sarah Slean Official site
- Little Slean (Fan site)
- Igniting Sparks (Fan site)
- Blue Parade (Fan site)
- Official site for Black Widow, a musical about the Evelyn Dick murder case.
