Sarah Slean
When
Approximate running time: 2 hours
Venue
Performance Notes
Regina Folk Festival Concert Series 2011
Sarah Slean
November 11; Doors open 8:00pm. At the Exchange - 2431 8th Ave All Ages.
Advance tickets $25/ $30 at the door (subject to availability). No exchanges or refunds. Handling fees not included in ticket price (for Globe Theatre purchases only).
Anyone familiar with even a portion of Sarah Slean’s creative output knows she refuses to do anything by half measure. Her latest effort, Land & Sea, her first release on Toronto based independent label, Pheromone Recordings, is no exception. “Sometimes I wish that I could pick up a guitar and make a quiet, little, intimate album, but that’s just not who I am musically,” Slean says. “For Land & Sea, it was go big or go home.”
That’s an ethic Slean has employed with increasing enthusiasm since first releasing her debut recording Universe in 1997. Although perhaps best known as a recording artist, in addition to releasing nine solo albums and contributing to a variety of other artists’ projects as a vocalist, pianist and arranger, the two time Gemini and three time JUNO Award nominee has consistently refined her singular voice as an artist by expressing herself in a variety of contexts; as an actress, appearing in films such as David Morton’s Black Widow (2005) and CJ Wallis’s Last Flowers, as a poet, publishing two volumes of poetry, Ravens (2004) and The Baroness (2008) and as a talented visual artist.
At a time when recording budgets are shrinking and album sales declining even the most ambitious of artists might be tempted to dial their aspirations back a notch. Instead, with Land & Sea, Slean embarked on the most challenging recording of her career – a double album that juxtaposes two dramatically different aesthetics, producers, writing processes, recording environments and musicians.
Set for release on September 27th 2011, both Land and Sea are influenced heavily what Slean terms “the shocking wonder of existence.” They celebrate both the commonplace and extraordinary experiences (some welcome, some less so) of which our reality is comprised. Each record expresses those experiences in a very different way.