http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2005/04/09/fEntertainment322.raw.html[/url]

and another

http://www.herald.ca/stories/2005/04/07/fEntertainment164.raw.html

[quote:f77783ecf7]THE LAST TIME Toronto singer-songwriter Sarah Slean came to town, in the fall on tour with Ron Sexsmith, the conversation turned to L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz, which she referenced in words and images on her Juno-nominated third album Day One.

As a graphic artist and poet, besides being an acclaimed composer of deliriously striking melodies, Slean looks for stimuli in all areas, from heavily symbolic children's novels, to the weightier tomes that accompany her on her current tour as winter segues into spring.

"I'm on a big Nietzsche trip right now. I'm trying to read everything he's done. I'm comparing him to Kierkegaard, and how much I love Kierkegaard," explains Slean, unwinding in her Sydney hotel room, before heading to a sound check at the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre.

On Friday, she performs at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Halifax with Jill Barber and Justin Rutledge.

"I think I still like him more than Nietzsche, but Nietzsche's ideas are interesting and I've got this way too big and way too heavy book of his I've been chipping away at.

"And for just pleasure I've been reading A Short History of the World by H.G. Wells . . ."

With books like Fear and Trembling and The Concept of Dread, it's not hard to imagine the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard becoming an alternative pop singer-songwriter in this day and age - Nietzsche is a bit more punk rock - although the whole discussion brought back dim memories of a 20-year-old Foundation Year paper at King's College contrasting Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche.

"Dostoyevsky was definitely one of the forerunners of existentialism, even though he never passed himself off as a philosopher or lived in the period when existentialism was flourishing," says Slean.

"I didn't take philosophy, but now I really think I should have because I've become hugely fascinated by it, and I become entranced by that section in every book store I walk into so . . . Maybe in a parallel lifetime I can go to school and study it."

In this existence, Slean's life has been more concerned with matters music, like her major headlining tour which began at the start of March, and was briefly interrupted by a stop at the Juno Awards in Winnipeg last weekend, where she was nominated in the new adult alternative category (along with Dartmouth's Matt Mays).

Slean didn't win, the award went to another Sarah - Harmer - but she was able to ride out the surrealism of the weekend a little more ably than two years ago when she was a rookie, up for best new artist.

"I was a little more prepared for the madness this year," she laughs.

"It was really a shock to the system (in 2003), coming out of this very private musical world, the world you share with your fans, and the hotel room world of the travelling musician, and finding yourself in the middle of this circus fray. I could appreciate it though, I found it very entertaining.

"I went to this party at the Fairmont Hotel, and we found this grand piano in the lounge, and we were playing show tunes and Joni Mitchell covers and the Clash all night with a bunch of friends. It was good, they kicked us out at 5:30 a.m."

Crooning songs from The Sound of Music all night in a Winnipeg hotel lounge is a nice way to take a break from the road, but Slean insists she suffers from no weariness on this tour, performing with an ace band - "Probably the best musically, the strongest rhythmically, personality-wise on stage it just seems to work" - and a determination to let it all out on stage, occasionally revealing personal secrets between songs.

"It's part of the mission. It's the secret of life, connecting with the audience. That's what you've gotta do. You've got a performance to do, to wake up and feel again instead of feeling numb.

"It's those cycles of numbness that allow the most damage to occur, to the earth and humanity. You've got to make sure everyone's awake. . . . Playing is like a very strange exaggerated giving, and it feels really good."
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