Sarah Slean: Metaphysics
Mar. 31st, 2017 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinDisclaimer: I am writing this between long, decongestant-ridden naps. I cannot pretend it will be coherent or, or, anything. So there you are.
Sarah Slean's new album is out at last, and you can listen to it streaming here:
CBC Music First Play: Metaphysics
... until April 7th, when it comes available to buy. (I have already bought it.)
It was ten years ago almost exactly that I heard Slean for the first time on one of the CBC's Saturday morning shows, singing "Lucky Me", prompting me to find her Myspace page (MySpace!) and listen to it on repeat for literally the rest of the day. 2007 was a pivotal year for me, and the refrain of that song played no small part in my taking the opportunities that arose in it:
I bought the album (Orphan Music) and listened to it half to death, but it didn't occur to me to check up on what she had been doing in the meantime until I happened to hear an interview with her in 2011, on the release of her double album Land and Sea. I looked her up again and got the intervening albums first, so that I could get the most out of them before diving into Land & Sea, which I finally did about a year later. All these encounters had happened at exactly the right time for things going on in my life: the interview touched on some deep issues I was trying to work out, about art and life and the direction I wanted to go, and putting off Land & Sea for a year meant I heard "Society Song" exactly when I needed it most. This was on top of a vague impression that I was picking up things from the lyrics which most others weren't, like I was somehow tuned to a special frequency on which the meaning was being transmitted – given that, usually, I'm missing what everyone else seems to be picking up on, this made her songs all the more special.
When I heard she would be coming out with a new album in Spring of 2017, I wondered what I'd be going through at that time, that the album would speak to in that uncanny way her music always had done. I've been following her updates with pleasure and interest (they are recapped in streamlined form on the streaming page), and in another remarkable piece of good timing, the streaming album dropped yesterday, when I was bedridden with this cold, too awake to sleep and too asleep to read, just the right state for giving full attention to music. Great!
Having heard her first on a very pared-down live acoustic album, her studio stuff has always struck me as 'overproduced' when I first listen to it; it takes a few times through to get used to the sound. This one is, I think, the shiniest album yet – it's billed as being orchestral, but those are sounds no orchestra instruments make on their own. Nevertheless, it's still nice and all; she's still singing about things no one else seems to sing about, and manages to have both meaningful lyrics and strong melodies, which so few seem to do these days. But this time, she's not singing to me. And, almost immediately upon making that observation, I realised that that was OK – it's been ten years, after all, it's about time things shifted a little; someone out there will be very grateful to get the messages she's transmitting here, on frequencies I'm not tuned to. I hope it makes as much difference to them as it did to me, over all those years.
I know I'm not healed – I definitely know that – but I've come a very long way since 2007, and even since 2012; maybe this is as far along the path as this particular fellow traveller can help me come. Who will be the the next? Will there be one? Is this where I pick up my bags and carry them myself? – or leave them behind?
Sarah Slean's new album is out at last, and you can listen to it streaming here:
CBC Music First Play: Metaphysics
... until April 7th, when it comes available to buy. (I have already bought it.)
It was ten years ago almost exactly that I heard Slean for the first time on one of the CBC's Saturday morning shows, singing "Lucky Me", prompting me to find her Myspace page (MySpace!) and listen to it on repeat for literally the rest of the day. 2007 was a pivotal year for me, and the refrain of that song played no small part in my taking the opportunities that arose in it:
And you're sad, and you're sorry,
Let it all out – what are you running for?
This is your chance, be ready –
I'm taking my seat ... Oh, lucky me!
I bought the album (Orphan Music) and listened to it half to death, but it didn't occur to me to check up on what she had been doing in the meantime until I happened to hear an interview with her in 2011, on the release of her double album Land and Sea. I looked her up again and got the intervening albums first, so that I could get the most out of them before diving into Land & Sea, which I finally did about a year later. All these encounters had happened at exactly the right time for things going on in my life: the interview touched on some deep issues I was trying to work out, about art and life and the direction I wanted to go, and putting off Land & Sea for a year meant I heard "Society Song" exactly when I needed it most. This was on top of a vague impression that I was picking up things from the lyrics which most others weren't, like I was somehow tuned to a special frequency on which the meaning was being transmitted – given that, usually, I'm missing what everyone else seems to be picking up on, this made her songs all the more special.
When I heard she would be coming out with a new album in Spring of 2017, I wondered what I'd be going through at that time, that the album would speak to in that uncanny way her music always had done. I've been following her updates with pleasure and interest (they are recapped in streamlined form on the streaming page), and in another remarkable piece of good timing, the streaming album dropped yesterday, when I was bedridden with this cold, too awake to sleep and too asleep to read, just the right state for giving full attention to music. Great!
Having heard her first on a very pared-down live acoustic album, her studio stuff has always struck me as 'overproduced' when I first listen to it; it takes a few times through to get used to the sound. This one is, I think, the shiniest album yet – it's billed as being orchestral, but those are sounds no orchestra instruments make on their own. Nevertheless, it's still nice and all; she's still singing about things no one else seems to sing about, and manages to have both meaningful lyrics and strong melodies, which so few seem to do these days. But this time, she's not singing to me. And, almost immediately upon making that observation, I realised that that was OK – it's been ten years, after all, it's about time things shifted a little; someone out there will be very grateful to get the messages she's transmitting here, on frequencies I'm not tuned to. I hope it makes as much difference to them as it did to me, over all those years.
I know I'm not healed – I definitely know that – but I've come a very long way since 2007, and even since 2012; maybe this is as far along the path as this particular fellow traveller can help me come. Who will be the the next? Will there be one? Is this where I pick up my bags and carry them myself? – or leave them behind?
no subject
Date: 2017-03-31 11:18 pm (UTC)if you ever felt inclined to share more details about your story, I'd definitely be inclined to listen - but in the meanwhile I am just really glad that you're at a better place in your life. (And thank you for sharing this).
no subject
Date: 2017-04-01 10:58 am (UTC)Many thinky thoughts happening inside this little noggin ...