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Emily Haines is an artist that defies labeling.
Frontwoman for Metric, she is proud to release
her debut solo album, Knives
Don’t Have Your Back
this fall on Last Gang Records. Written
and recorded over the past four years in
Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto and New York,
the record sites contributions from the
likes of Scott Minor from Sparklehorse,
Broken Social Scene’s Justin Peroff,
Stars’ Evan Cranley and Metric’s
Jimmy Shaw. A distinct contrast from Metric’s
bold, danceable sound, Knives
is an intimate and subtle collection of
mellow, piano-driven tunes complimented
by soft string and horn arrangements. |
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Toronto based Metric has climbed the ladder
the good old-fashioned way. Years of writing,
recording and performing have earned them
their stripes as a bonafide success story.
Their magnificent journey has taken them
around the world, collecting accolades and
critical acclaim as they went. 2003’s
Old World Underground, Where
Are You Now? went gold in
Canada in December of 2005. Quick on its
heels was their September 2005 sophomore
release, Live It Out,
which achieved a Canadian gold record in
March of 2006. The band held their own during
a twonight stint opening for The Rolling
Stones at Madison Square Garden earlier
this year, appearing on Late
Night with Conan O’Brien
on their day off in between. They performed
at the prestigious Coachella festival and
will appear this summer at both Leeds and
Reading. These experiences and successes
are the bold, exuberant part of Emily Haines’
artistic persona. Her solo effort, Knives
Don’t Have Your Back, and the intimate
live performance she’s created, illustrate
her more introspective, personal body of
work.
Haines’ decision to release a solo
album was long in the making. She says,
“When I was a little kid…I would
creep downstairs to the piano and write
rudimentary songs about imaginary places.
I’m told the first song I ever wrote
was a love song to a cranberry tree. I always
used the mute pedal. I hated the idea of
anybody hearing me. Everywhere I’ve
lived while working with Metric, I’ve
written songs on the piano and played them
for no one. On the advice of a friend, I
decided I’d better start recording
them before they were forgotten. Four meandering
years later I ended up with this collection
of songs featuring a few of my favorite
people, a group I call The Soft Skeleton.”
Each song on the album holds a personal
story from Haines’ life over the past
decade. One track, for instance, was written
years ago while she was studying electroacoustics
in Montreal, and is an homage to childhood
heroes Carla Bley and Robert Wyatt. Several
songs, including “Reading in Bed”
and “Mostly Waving” were recorded
in Toronto during the winter of 2002, while
Haines was mourning the sudden loss of her
father, poet Paul Haines. A handful of songs
were conceived during Metric’s early
years, when the band was struggling to make
ends meet, while more recent tracks were
written with a change in perspective, as
Haines faced Metric’s growing success.
In the spring and summer of 2005, Haines
enlisted local musician Todor Kobakov to
add string arrangements to a few songs,
while friends from Broken Social Scene and
Stars added horns to other tracks. Over
the past few months, she has worked with
producer John O’Mahony (Metric, The
Strokes, System of a Down). O’Mahony
introduced Emily to the final contributor
to the album: Scott Minor from the band
Sparklehorse, who added several instrumental
tracks as well as “various mysterious
noises from North Carolina.” Finally,
as Haines says, “The scattered songs
fell together.” |
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Biography |
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Press
Photo 1 (.jpg)
Photo Credit : Candace Meyer |
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Press
Photo 2 (.jpg)
Photo Credit : Candace Meyer |
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