Land & Sea - The First Day

Today marked the first day of the release for Land & Sea!

Throughout the entire day glowing feedback was being tweeted @sarahslean on twitter with reviews of the album.  Sarah responded back and RT a number of them.  I wasn't able to locate anything other then sharp praise for both Land & Sea on twitter, facebook and forums.  It's not clear which of the 2 discs is preferred the most at this time, but some have found this their favourite work of hers to date.

Although delays were expected with the iTunes release internationally, fans outside of Canada where able to download the album in their local iTunes or Amazon stores.  Sarah's tweets provided an updates that the digital distributor hit a snag that effected international pricing that was being resolved.  When it came to the deluxe edition, questions remained on its availability and the digital booklet.  What did come appearant as the day went on people where going out and buying in stores and Sarah was added to the international streaming services of Spotify and Rdio.

This morning Sarah did a live interview on breakfast television.  A stream of it was under the video section.  http://www.cp24.com/mshow/

Some highlights from the interview was Sarah confirming that the tour will mostly focus on Land and that in the end it should each the East coast of St. John's.  She described the musicians recording on Sea and playing at her Harbourfront concert as exquisite and in a change, the interviewed put his shoes aside and Sarah kept hers on.

Source: SarahSlean's Twitter Image

The hand made editions of Land & Sea also went into the mail but where first photographed by Sarah and tweeted.  50 album cases where made for both Land & Sea putting the total number at 100 unique covers.  They are similar to how the work was done for the Beauty Lives special edition with the exception of the sides not being labeled.

Lastly, Sarah's website was updated with VIP packages for Nelson, Edmonton and Vancouver.  Most tour dates that are not already on sale will go on sale this Friday.  Some of the shows have pre-sales.

Will keep my eyes and ears out for any media appearances over day 2.  I hope very much that the littleslean readers enjoy their albums of Land & Sea as much as I do.  Thanks for reading and sharing.

Land & Sea - Out Now with iTunes Deluxe Package

Land & Sea has officially been released today. The standard CD comes in a double digi pack with themes representing both "Land" and "Sea." The booklet contains lyrics to all 18 songs and full credits including each member of the 21 piece orchestra. Familiar names from Sarah's band supporting The Baroness that repeat here are Mark Mariash (drums), Chris Banks (bass), Dean Drouilard (guitar) and Royal Wood (guitar/organ/bass).

50 - hand painted editions by Sarah where also sold-out during the pre-order stage that we have yet to see.

No photos additional information is yet available on the vinyl edition, a first for Sarah.

According to Sarah's twitter and facebook the world wide iTunes release is set for early October and will include a digital booklet as did The Baroness when it was released. Other online music retailers like Amazon listed yesterday may have it available for the 27th.

iTunes (Canada) currently has deluxe edition available for sale right now selling instrumental versions of all 9 songs on Sea. It's not clear if those will be available anywhere else or made international at some point.

I will be staying on top of the press to promote the album and will be providing summaries and links.

Listen to Land & Sea! (Audio clips)

Ahead of the album release, streaming MP3s are available in Amazon UK digital music store providing 30 second clips of each track of the double album.

You can listen to it here.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Sea/dp/B005P3YLDE

For those that have not pre-ordered autographed copies of Sarah's album through her store, other retailers have the CD listed.  Here are some Canadian shops that should have it on sale on the 27th

amazon.ca - 17.99
Indigo -  20.26 (Could be lowered to 14.99 as shown on in store system)
ScreamingCD - 17.99
CDPlus.com - 16.24
HMV.ca - 24.99

Some of the stores found internationally seem to be releasing the CD on October 4th.
amazon.co.uk amazon.com amazon.de amazon.fr
Deepdicount.com
FindersRecords

It is highly likely that there are far great number of stores both on and offline that will have the album available for sale on the 27th in both physical and digital forms.

CBC (Radio Canada) TV Appearance Today

Another interview and preview of the new albums is to be shown today on CBC Radio-Canada TV today according  a tweet from CBC's Kevin Sweet. A follow up tweet indicates that it will be shown on Channel 12 (CBLFT) in Toronto at 6:00pm. The following web stream may work for international viewers trying to catch it live. The FAQ says they stream at 300kbs and archive most content for 14 days at 500kbs.  This post will be updated with an archived link if one is able to be found.

Tweets between Sarah and Kevin thought this month have been very positive.

Explore Music Interview (Video)

Sarah's Interview with Explore Music sheds new light on the album, recording with Joel Plakset and tour plans following these dates in November. When it comes to touring, Sarah has announced most dates for her fall tour for Land & Sea with additional dates being released yesterday. In the interview Sarah mentioned how it will be 'Land' focused and has previously stated it will be a bit more of a rock. US dates and a series of concerts to play 'Sea' seem to be the cross hair for next year. Tickets for the concert in Halifax with Symphony NS are currently on sale as mentioned here on littleslean.

Composer's Edition for Land & Sea

This Tuesday Sarah's new double album will released.  Her store continues to sell some unique pre-orders, one which is a composer's edition.  If you can you play the  violin, viola, cello, or double bass this might be the set for you.

More details on the composer edition was posted on Sarah's facebook page in response to a question for further details.  Here is the response for those that may have missed it.

It will be the full orchestral score of either The Right Words or Napoleon - 5-7 pages long (respectively) - showing the first and second violin, viola, cello, double bass, and vocal parts - with lyrics (no piano). This is what the conductor reads as he is conducting. It has all the dynamics, technical notes, articulations, etc. Both of these (The Right Words and Napoleon) were my scores, so you can see exactly what I composed - down to the very last detail. They will be printed on card stock and professionally taped, accordion style - so that the conductor can open it up and lay it flat on the conductor's podium. They look rather beautiful, in my view.

The composer edition is being sold with a set of lithographs from 2009 and only sold previously at that year's holiday show.  One of the bundles have been sold out but a second set with different images and perhaps representing a different score is still for sale in her store.  The lithographs are available in Sarah's gallery.

If you are getting the companion edition and have inspiration to play it, leave a comment her or on twitter.  Perhaps a fan collaboration can be put together among like minded artists.

Sarah Slean in Maclean's (Article)

In the September 12th issue of Maclean's Magazine they have a 3 page feature article on Sarah.Slean by Elio Iannacci.  The cover story is for the late Mr. Jack Layton who's death Sarah had tweeted about.

The article on Sarah touches upon the influences for how the 'Land' side of the albums was inspired by the scores of musicals like The Sounds of Music and Wizard of Oz.

They go into personal struggles that have surfaced as those mentioned in the song Shadowland and with finding her own identity.  In years past she found comparrrisons to Sarah Harmer, Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos where hard to take as she was discovering herself as an individual.

Talking about her relationship with Royal Wood it is pointed out he did produced one of the songs on the Land album, Everybody's on TV.  This will not be the first time Royal has produced work for Sarah as he was a producer for the Beauty Lives EP.

You can read the full article for yourself online and view more stunning photographs by the photographer Jaime Hogge here.

Next media appearance we know of for Sarah is appearing this Saturday on CBC's Big City, Small World.

Land & Sea Pre-Orders

Today marks the day for pre-orders for Sarah Slean's new double album among other bundles and discounts.  Ticket and tour information may also be posted today according to the latest mailing list entry.

For the last few weeks Sarah's official YouTube channel has been showing behind the scenes footage of the creation of the Land portion of the album.  The 30 minutes of footage is in the playlist below is a good sample of the Land portion of the album.





Land Track Listing:

1. Life - First played live July 1st, 2010
2. The Day We Saved The World - Debuted at last Fall's Canwest Music Festival
3. Set It Free - Currently available single
4. Everybody's On TV - Mentioned in this Tweet Dec 16, 2010
5. Amen - Shown in the first making-of video
6. I Am A Light
7. New Pair of Eyes - Sold in a flash sale, making-of video 
8. Girls Hating Girls - making-of video 
9. Society Song

Sea Track Listing:

1. The Cosmic Ballet - Debuted August 6, 2011
2. Everything By The Gallon (Beauty Lives B-Side)
3. The Devil & The Dove
4. Napoleon - Debuted August 6, 2011
5. Attention Archers - Debuted August 6, 2011
6. You're Not Alone - Debuted August 6, 2011
7. The Right Words (First heard on Beauty Lives album, lyrics)
8. The One True Love
9. My Eyes & Your Eyes

The only song that appears that we had speculated could have been on the album and is not is My Song to which Sarah had tweeted about early in the recording process.  That song is available on Beauty Lives.

Bundles include a composer's addition.  If you do create your own covers of Sarah, I would be happy to highlight them here on littleslean.

The hand made covers I can imagine might be similar the 100 hand painted Beauty Lives.  The full gallery of the artwork for those covers are on Sarah's site.

Visit Sarah's store to purchase pre-orders.

Free Concert on Toronto's Harbourfront - August 6th

Sarah Slean is returning to the outdoor stage at Harbourfront this summer for a free concert.  The concert takes place Saturday August 6th at 9:30 PM on the newly named West Jet stage.  Sarah played this same stage last year on Canada Day.

The headlining concert is part of an event called "What's Classical" and is curated by the Art of Time Ensemble's Andrew Burashko.

The event page sheds some more details on Sarah's new album.  The Sea album is described as having 4 original orchestrations by Sarah and 3 by Jonathan Goldsmith.

This is only the second known concert date Sarah has planned for this summer.  The first will come at the Elora Festival on July 16th.

More details can be found here:
http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/summer/festivals.cfm?id=3164

Sarah's New Song only Available until 10am

As announced on Sarah's official sites, she has donated a previously unreleased song from her upcoming album in support of relief efforts in Japan.

"She has chosen a song called “New Pair of Eyes” which she describes as an “ode to the shocking wonder of existence”. Typically mundane… ;)

Yes – before the single is released, before a video is made, before the world gets to hear the entirety of her giant double-disc 18-song creation, get yourself a taste of the magnificent work to come and send your love to a part of the world that desperately needs it!" 

- SarahSlean.com

Sarah's single is currently being sold in the final block of 20 songs for $20. It is also still being sold in the full 100 song list. The sale ends at 10am on Thursday so for those wanting to hear this song they must act fast.

The song appears to be from the "Land" album as it has a pop sound more kin to Sweet Ones, Out in the Park and Luck Me.

Land and Sea comes out on September 27th. The double album features 18 songs to which the following track titles are known:

• "New Pair of Eyes" - Released exclusively Song of Love for Japan
• "Set It Free" is the first single to be  released May 2nd
• "The Day We Saved the World" played at the Canwest Music Festival and again at the holiday show.
• "Life" debuted live July 1st 2010 in Toronto
• "My Song" played live in 2005, released on the Beauty Lives bside album in 2010 and to be recorded on the "Sea" album.

Land and Sea features Dean Drouillard and mixed by Gordie Johnson

Dean Drouillard who played guitar for Sarah Slean on her Baroness tour has recorded with her on the "Land" half of the double album during the Fall of 2010. In one of his blog posts he described the process and noted that Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar mixed the recording. Gordie Johnson has worked with Joel Plaskett who produced the "Land" album.

"I spent a few days playing guitar on the first half of Sarah Slean‘s forthcoming bouncy and poppy release Land and Sea. The second half of the double album consists of voice, piano and orchestra. The band sessions were energetically conducted by Joel Plaskett with sarah and her regular live band playing in the live room. Gordie Johnson (Big Sugar) mixed the band recordings and it is scheduled to be released sometime in 2011."

- Dean Drouillard

Set it Free - New Single from Land and Sea

The first single off Sarah's new double album Land and Sea is "Set It Free." The single is due for rotation on May 2nd according to recent article in Chart in which they met up with Sarah on the red carpet of the Junos.

At this time these is no other information on this song other then it coming from the Land album.

The interview also confirmed the exact album release date of Land and Sea being September 27, 2011.




Update: Dose.ca has put up a short red carpet interview of Sarah at the Junos talking about her performance and the new album.

Sarah's New Album 'Sea' - Live Recording

Sarah's interview with CBC this week mostly focused on how running has effected her life and music.  Towards the end of the segment more information was revealed about the new album.

Sarah confirmed again it will be done with a 23 piece orchestra and the targeted release date is in September.

They also advised that a live recording of Sea may take place this June.  No other information is available about that show at this moment.

Sarah Slean - New Album Release Date

CBC Radio 3 has compiled a list of Canadian artist release dates for 2010.  Sarah's new album, Land and Sea is slated for September 2011 with distribution by Pheromone.

New Sarah Slean official site launched with BIG News

Sarah's new official site that we spotted being tested a few weeks ago has now welcomed visitors and offered some huge news in one short sentence:

Coming soon – digital scores for download, the digital release of indies and back catalogue world-wide, and more!

-gtavegan.com 

Sheet music has been desired by fans for many years.  A few years ago sheet music fans submitted their favourite songs to see included in a sheet music book to Sarah's site.  The book was never released but the demand shown and input of fans may be included in this release.  Most of Sarah's catalog is still available for sale through MapleMusic and online through the Canadian iTunes store.  It will be interesting to see what other releases they plan to put forward and exciting to see her digital catalog go on sale globally.

In another entry of news Sarah has an update on her new album and officially hints at the working album title, Land and Sea.  Land portion of the double album with Joel has been recorded.

Other news entries posted on the site confirm previous posts to littleslean like tonight's Song For Africa release party tonight and the Free Canada Day concert.

A widget has been added to littlelsean news side bar to show new posts to Sarah's new site.

Update 2010-06-18 :
 http://www.sarahslean.com/ has now been updated to with the format and content that was available on gtavegan.com