A great article with new stories on what Sarah experienced in Paris and her new writing style.

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/arts/st...670-2b2050101d0e&p=1
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Sarah Slean on the Boulevard
Joanne Paulson, The StarPhoenix
Published: Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Ah, Paris. Home to good red wine, the Eiffel Tower . . . and crazy but kind hoteliers with giant bulldogs.

Sarah Slean's time in the city of lights -- where inspiration swirled for her newest album, The Baroness -- was a "non-stop river of experiences," she recalls.

"I'd always been fascinated with French culture and the magnetic appeal it had to writers, philosophers, thinkers, painters -- everybody spent time there," she says in an on-tour interview from Victoria.

"My album Day One was released in France and they wanted me to tour a little bit. I thought this is my opportunity, this is my chance! So I went over there, and I toured for about a month, did some press here and there, and then I just didn't leave for another six months."

Slean lived on the border of the First and Fourth Arondissements, in a tiny apartment near the river. Getting that place, however, was a test of patience. She had another place booked, but when she called the landlord to arrange key pick-up, she got a nasty shock.

"They said, 'I'm sorry, it's taken.' I said, 'What? I reserved it. What?' They're like, 'I'm sorry, have a very good day, good-bye.'

"It was awful. For two weeks I just sort of wandered."

The river of experiences began to flow almost immediately. "I met with all these crazy characters, like a one-eyed woman in a bar; and this hotelier . . . with this giant bulldog took me in, and her son Guillaume, and they started helping me find places.

"She actually would march up and down the streets with me, dragging me everywhere -- this woman doesn't even know me -- trying to find me an apartment. She's translating, she's bartering for me for lower prices, she's asking questions like, where's the laundry?

"She actually let me stay in her mother's apartment for a week, for a hundred euros, while I was actively trying to find another one. The whole seven months, there was not a dull moment, I swear to God."

She stayed from February until October 2006, and started writing songs for the album that would become The Baroness. She rented a little white upright piano, and scribbled countless notes, which she taped up behind her bed.

"Nothing really finished itself, and it was so frustrating. But I kind of realize now, that backstage is where you do all the seeing, and experiencing, and the crying and the struggling, and going to parties, and being alone. You feel everything. It just charges through you like a freight train."

She found stillness when she returned to Toronto, and then was able to complete the songs. It was, after all, home -- where she hadn't really been for two and a half years, because of touring, and because of Paris.

Interestingly, Slean has been compared to iconic French singer Edith Piaf; but she's not so sure about the comparison any more.

"I'm honoured. I feel that her voice is a rare gem. I love Edith Piaf. I don't know, musically, if I'm still in that world. I like to think I still hang on to a little bit of that flavour.

"But this record for me, in comparison to my previous, is so unadorned. I didn't do that consciously. I think maybe turning 30 and really learning how to tell the truth to yourself and sort of chipping away at life experiences to really get at the nugget of wisdom that is hiding in there, I think I'm getting better at that. I think my songs got simpler and more streamlined, and the lyric is more direct."

Slean also paints, writes poetry and is studying for a music degree with a philosophy minor at the University of Toronto. Time management seems to be another one of her talents.

"Exam period, the finals I just finished in April, that was stressful. I didn't take a full year at school because I knew I would have a lot going on."

But Slean prefers to be busy and engaged. "I consider the alternative of being not inspired, not excited about it.

"When I have writer's block, it's awful. It's like the most brutal pain, ever. When I feel like I have ideas brewing, and it's a fertile, artistic time . . . that's the magic, that's what I want.

"I can't ever complain that too much of it is coming."

Royal Wood, a Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist, opens for Slean. His most recent release, A Good Enough Day, is an ancient sonnet "spun into twelve reasons as to why you should become a romantic," says his press. It "blends modern elements, forthright lyrics and haunting strings with love, life and death."

jpaulson(AT)sp.canwest.com

ah yes. great article indeed. thanks for posting! =)