errr erm...

from the guardian unlimited (as always right on the money):
This is what The Bell Jar might have sounded like in Sylvia Plath's head before she put pen to paper. Just look at some of the newspaper headlines Emily Haines, singer with successful Canadian indie band Metric and a part-time member of Broken Social Scene, has had recently: "Basking in Bleakness" and "the Exorcism of Emily Haines". On Knives Don't Have Your Back, her fragile whisper lends a sympathetic air to 11 broken-down anthems for thirtysomething females everywhere. On a series of piano elegies dark like diary entries inked during anxious, sleepless nights, she sounds wounded and world-weary. Through her prism of pessimism, Haines decries success with Metric (who supported the Rolling Stones last year), domestic bliss and long-distance love. It's a drained, draining, sobering meditation on modern melancholy and loss. Imagine Phil Spector producing Ronnie Spector without the Wall of Sound. It feels spectral.

The daughter of Canadian poet Paul Haines, she was born in New Delhi and raised in Canada, surrounded by experimental art and musical expression. Her early influences included Carla Bley, Robert Wyatt and PJ Harvey. She attended the Etobicoke School of the Arts. Her early solo act consisted of just herself (blindfolded), and a piano. She appeared in the 2004 dramatic film Clean, in which Metric played themselves, performing their song Dead Disco, followed by a small speaking role for Haines.
And now she's made her debut solo album proper. Written and recorded over four years in Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto and New York, Knives Don't Have Your Back features contributions from Scott Minor of Sparklehorse, Broken Social Scene's Justin Peroff, Stars' Evan Cranley and Metric's Jimmy Shaw. A zillion miles from Metric's danceable solution, it's an intimate, subtle collection of haunting piano-driven tunes complemented by soft string and horn arrangements. Several songs were recorded back in winter 2002, while Haines was mourning the death of her father. It was produced by John O'Mahony (the Strokes, System Of A Down). And sleevenotes are courtesy of the aforementioned Soft Machine drummer. "Haines doesn't take a predictable route to the inside of your head," he writes. "No grandstanding. She's a true daughter of the revolution, and has inherited wisdom beyond her years."

The buzz: "At its most haunted, the album is reminiscent of Elliot Smith's final compositions, with Haines' voice sunken and drifting."

The truth: You know Holocaust by Big Star? Knives... is an album of songs like that, only sung by a girl who casually deploys phrases like "sexual suicide" and "there's a bullet in the gun" like she's ordering a latte.
Most likely to: Push you over the edge if you're that way inclined.

Least likely to: Get much iPod action round Peter and Jordan's gaff.

File next to: Sylvia Plath, Laura Nyro, Thom Yorke, Elliot Smith.


oddly not drifting to virtual amsterdam (yet).............