Sarah Slean is a musician I’d heard friends talking about online a lot before I finally checked her music out. I think one of those friends may have given me a copy of two of her albums to start me on my path of discovery, but they were certainly right in their guess that her music would be right up my street. Piano? Check. Classical background? Check. Musical theatre influence? Check. Literate, clever, witty, and wry? Check.
Although Lucky Me was the song that grabbed me and pulled me in, it was the album Night Bugs that I took hold of and fell for utterly. Before long two of her songs started appearing as covers in my sets – the wonderful Sweet Ones, and the more dramatic The Score.
The latter was one of the songs that I did with the girl group trio I played with for a while. Their three part harmonies in that song really were something else, and playing around with harmonies with those singers was one of the big influences on the vocal layering on my debut record. We
Her most recent album, Land & Sea, is an absolute treat – particularly the second disc, which centers around voice, piano and strings, which is one of my favourite combinations of instruments. Despite the fact that it was her more pop leaning songs that I initally was drawn in by, it’s this disc that I find myself turning to.
I mean, check out this live performance of “Napoleon” performed with a string ensemble.
The album was finished off in a hut in Newfoundland, which features in the video for the song The Devil And The Dove:
It was here, in a little shack by the sea with a grand piano, a bed, a table, chair and kettle (little else), Sarah completed composing the songs and four orchestral scores for this incredible collection. “…one of the most inspiring places on Earth…. It’s impossible to be distracted from the powerful presence of Life itself here – the rugged land, the ever-changing weather, the magnificent, powerful ocean…it’s a place to ponder the vast expanse of time before and beyond us, to ponder the wondrous marvel of being.”
One of the songs from that latest record is one of those little inspiration touchstones you turn to at times. I’m always a music first, lyrics later, kinda listener when it comes to songs, and indeed sometimes it’ll be months before I realise exactly what the words of a song I love actually are. However, with The Right Words, it was the words that grabbed me along with that beautiful vocal melody in the chorus.
“throw your heart into the ocean, throw your heart into the sea
you will find that all the right words
will come out naturally”
