Metric Officially Release First Album And Emily Haines Has New EP

05/10/07 5:00pm

Metric are in pre-production for the follow-up to 2005's Live It Out album at Toronto's Giant Studios. But that's not all that the band members or their Last Gang record label are up to.

The forthcoming record first started coming together last November at Bear Creek Studios, north of Seattle, Washington, where all four members — singer/keyboardist Emily Haines, guitarist Jimmy Shaw, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key — wrote together for the first time. In the past, Haines and Shaw wrote the songs together and then presented them to their bandmates to add final touches.

"We went for a warm sound, using a lot of vintage instruments," Haines says of the Bear Creek sessions.

When they returned to Toronto, however, she says that "the writing went in a much more electronic, beat-driven direction," with Winstead writing bass lines on synthesizer. Winstead and Shaw also swapped instruments to add to the "sonic experimentation."

Metric aim to finish writing and to start recording in June, and have everything finished by October.

But there's more Metric-related music on the way well before the new album arrives in stores. The group's Grow Up And Blow Away debut, which was recorded by Haines and Shaw in 1999 but never officially released due to restructuring at Restless Records and Rykodisc, will finally be made widely available via Last Gang. The album can be downloaded exclusively from iTunes starting on June 12, while the hard copy will arrive in stores two weeks later.

Haines and her other band, The Soft Skeleton, released Knives Don't Have Your Back in North America in September. It will be released in Europe next month. Four songs recorded for the album that didn't make it on to the final version, plus a remix of "Mostly Waving" by Soft Skeleton member Todor Kobakov, have been collected on a new EP called What Is Free To A Good Home?

The title comes from a poem written by Haines' late father, Paul Haines, for singer/songwriter/musician Robert Wyatt. The EP also features a musical arrangement of a Paul Haines poem called "Sprig" that was produced by Dave Newfeld (Broken Social Scene, Super Furry Animals).

The two poems are included in a book of the deceased Haines' work titled Secret Carnival Workers that will be published in tandem with the EP. What Is Free To A Good Home? will be released on CD and vinyl on July 24, with iTunes making it available digitally two weeks earlier.

Here are Metric's Canadian tour dates:
May 14-16 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite
May 17 Calgary, AB @ The Whisky
May 19 Victoria, BC @ Curling Club
May 21 Vancouver, BC @ Thunderbird Stadium (Virgin Festival)
Sept. 9 Toronto, ON @ Toronto Island (Virgin Festival)

Here are the songs on What Is Free to a Good Home?:

"Row Boat"
"The Bank"
"Telethon"
"Bottom Of The World"
"Sprig"
"Mostly Waving" (TodorK remix)

Here are the tracks on Grow Up And Blow Away:

"Grow Up"
"Hard Wire"
"Rock Me Now"
"The Twist"
"On The Sly"
"Soft Rock Star"
"Raw Sugar"
"White Gold"
"London Half Life"
"Soft Rock Star" (Jimmy vs. Joe mix)