Announce Intimate Shows & 20th Anniversary of Debut Album
Metric have released their new single, “Who Would You Be For Me.” The single appears on their forthcoming album Formentera II, out on October 13 via Metric Music International/Thirty Tigers. The album is the surprise follow up to Metric’s 2022 album Formentera. In addition to the new single, both “Nothing Is Perfect” and “Just The Once” have been released in the past few weeks.
Emily Haines on “Who Would You Be For Me”
The song “Who Would You Be For Me” is a throwback lullaby set in NYC in 2002. All the action takes place in Tompkins Square Park, in a subway car, and at the café on St. Marks Place where I worked as a waitress when we were getting our start.
Automatic behaviors and patterns are often fairly easy to flag in others but can be a riddle to spot in yourself. In life and in love, all the emphasis in your mind can default to being what someone else wants until it dawns on you to consider your own desire. I could be the girl for you, but who would you be for me? This week also marks the 20 year anniversary of their remarkable debut, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, and Metric have re-issued the album on vinyl with new color variants (neon violet, hot pink and tangerine), available now in the Metric Store. To celebrate this incredible milestone, Metric will also play a series of intimate concerts this fall at some of their favorite clubs in the US, Canada and Europe. The shows will kick off on October 10th at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City and will include stops in London, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles and their hometown of Toronto. Tickets for these special shows will go on sale today at 10AM Local time. In November, the band will also tour Central and South America. Full tour dates listed below.
Formentera II was recorded primarily at the band’s own Main Street Studios in a rural hamlet outside Toronto from 2020-2022 and was completed at Motorbass Studios in Paris in 2023. From Main Street to Motorbass, this is Metric at its best.
As was the case with Formentera, the songs of Formentera II were brought to life with Metric’s tried and true co-engineering & co-production trinity of Jimmy Shaw, Liam O’Neil, and Gus van Go, this time with the trio guiding the unpredictable process to completion from Main Street to Motorbass in Paris, the studio where some of the band’s favorite artists and sources of inspiration such as Air, Daft Punk and Sébastien Tellier have worked, in the very neighborhood Metric first visited with Olivier Assayas in 2004 when working with the director on his Cannes Palme D’Or award-winning film Clean. The final touches that happened on Formentera II in Paris at the end of the European leg of Metric’s global Doomscroller Tour infused the album with fresh energy and made for a celebratory finish to the labyrinthine process of making these two ambitious albums during the pandemic.
Taken together, Formentera I & II embody an 18 song statement piece written and performed by a dedicated band of artists at the height of their sonic and songwriting powers. Solidifying their identity as genre-defying risk takers, as they did 20 years ago with their debut album, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, Metric’s ninth studio album Formentera II continues to build upon the body of work that drives the group’s urgent purpose, with Haines acting as a lighting rod at the helm, expressing and interpreting the turbulence of life in this world, giving our complex emotions a voice.
Formentera II will be released physically on CD and on limited edition marble blue vinyl as well as sea glass blue vinyl. Metric are also releasing a complete double vinyl set of both Formentera I & II on opaque white vinyl. It’s all available for pre-order now in the Metric store. Digital pre-orders are available HERE. Indie retailers will carry a limited edition clear pink version of the Formentera II LP.
Formentera II Track Listing:
1. Detour Up
2. Just The Once
3. Stone Window
4. Days Of Oblivion
5. Who Would You Be For Me
6. Suckers
7. Nothing Is Perfect
8. Descendants
9. Go Ahead And Cry
Tour Dates:
*- Duo Acoustic Performance with Emily & Jimmy
10/10 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
10/12 – The Roxy – Los Angeles, CA
10/14 – The Concert Hall – Toronto, ONT
10/17 – Courtyard Theater – London, UK*
10/19 – Etoile – Paris, FRANCE*
10/21 – Privat Klub – Berlin, GERMANY*
11/21 – Metropolitan Theatre – Mexico City, MEXICO
11/22 – Showcenter Complex – Monterey, MEXICO
11/27 – Región Metropolitana, Chile – Teatro Coliseo – Santiago, CHILE
11/29-12/01 – São Paulo, BRAZIL (Festival Date)
More About Metric:
Metric is Emily Haines(vocals, keys), Jimmy Shaw(guitar), Joshua Winstead(bass guitar) and Joules Scott Key(drums). They have spent over 20 years together in creative partnership – a rare feat for any band. This September marks the 20th anniversary of Metric’s debut album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? “Almost 20 years later, the band has become Canadian indie-rock icons,” says Pitchfork. “Metric [has] their own increasingly rare success story.” The band resisted major label offers in favor of starting their own label and retaining control of their own material and career, and for the last two decades have found themselves on an unusual trajectory of increasing success while continuing to push their own artistic boundaries past conventional expectations.
Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw are also early members of Broken Social Scene. While Metric has always been their first priority, they have both written and performed songs on all of the collective’s albums from 2002-2017 including such tracks as “Almost Crimes,” “Swimmers,” “Sweetest Kill,” “Sentimental X’s” and “Protest Song.” Emily’s most notable contribution to the group is the breakout hit “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” from the award winning album You Forgot It In People. Haines has also collaborated with numerous other artists, most famously striking up a strong creative connection with the late Lou Reed, who performed “Wanderlust” on Metric’s album Synthetica and joined Metric on stage at their sold out headlining show at Radio City Music Hall in 2013 to perform “Wanderlust” and the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes.” Haines worked with Lou Reed on various additional live events overseen by the late producer Hal Willner as well as performing “Ballrooms of Mars” on Willner’s final tribute album, Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs Of Marc Bolan and T. Rex alongside U2, Nick Cave, Joan Jett, and others. Haines has released three solo studio albums, including the acclaimed Knives Don’t Have Your Back. Jimmy Shaw has also released a solo album and works as a sought after, JUNO award-winning producer.
Metric have a long history of creating music for film, starting in 2004 with their appearance in Olivier Assayas’ Clean, acting and performing their song “Dead Disco.” In his Scott Pilgrim series, graphic novelist Bryan Lee O’Malley based his fictional band Clash at the Demon Head on his experience of live Metric performances, and director Edgar Wright used their song “Black Sheep” in his 2010 film adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Also in 2010, Metric contributed the theme song “Eclipse (All Yours)” to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack which they co-wrote with Howard Shore. In 2012, they won a CSA (Canadian Screen Award) for their score of David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, also with Howard Shore. Metric songs have been featured in numerous feature films and television shows including Grey’s Anatomy, The L Word, Zombieland, Nikki Glaser’s HBO Special Good Clean Filth in 2022 and the hit animated film Nimona in 2023.
Both Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw grew up surrounded by art. Haines was born in New Delhi where her father, poet Paul Haines, was writing the lyrics for Carla Bley’s monumental Escalator Over the Hill and her activist/ teacher mother Jo ran a household steeped in experimental art and discourse stemming from their years in the Greenwich Village scene in the early 1960s. Born in the UK and raised in Toronto, Jimmy Shaw spent the first half of his life immersed in classical music and was accepted at the age of fifteen to the Curtis Institute in Boston and later graduated from the Juilliard Music School in New York. Metric has been nominated for numerous Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Awards, including five wins. Metric has appeared on The Tonight Show, The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Later…With Jools Holland and have toured extensively, playing headline shows and festivals around the world.
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