• News

• All

Jun 09, 2017 Emily Haines By Christopher Roberts

Metric frontwoman (and Broken Social Scene collaborator) Emily Haines released a fantastic solo album, Knives Don’t Have Your Back, 11 years ago, in 2006, under the name Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton. That was followed in 2007 by the EP What Is Free to a Good Home? But since then it’s been all quiet on the solo front, with Haines focusing mainly on Metric. Now she has finally announced her second Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton album, Choir of the Mind. It’s due out September 15 via Last Gang/eOne. She has shared a video for the album’s first single, “Fatal Gift,” which is below. Justin Broadbent directed the clip, which features Haines being driven around at night and hanging out in a convenience store, among other things.

Haines had this to say about “Fatal Gift” in a press release: “Most of the songs on the album came to me out of some recent major changes in my life, and others were composed when my life felt more stable. Of them all, ‘Fatal Gift’ is the song that has lived with me the longest, through many incarnations. This is the right time for the definitive version to be heard. The song embodies for me the undeniable fact that no matter how high I climb, that voice, pulling me back to my essential self remains. We all pursue symbols of achievement, but utopian material promises are hollow.”

Choir of the Mind was written over the last few years, in between Metric moments, and was recorded in 2016 at Giant Studios, on the West end of Toronto. Metric’s Jimmy Shaw co-produced the album with Haines, and it was engineered by Kenny Luong. Sparklehorse drummer Scott Minor, who also appeared on the original Soft Skeleton recordings, appears on the track “Legend of the Wild Horse.”

The full tracklisting and cover art have yet to be revealed. Broken Social Scene are releasing a new album, Hug of Thunder, on July 7 via Arts & Crafts and Haines is featured on it.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.