SPILL TRACK OF THE MONTH: METRIC – “JUST THE ONCE”

METRIC – “JUST THE ONCE”

METRIC MUSIC INTERNATIONAL/THIRTY TIGERS

Exactly one year after the release of Metric’s 2022 album Formentera, the band has surprised fans with an unannounced and unexpected part two companion album – Formentera II, set for release on October 13 via Metric Music International/Thirty Tigers.

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 their best.

“The only way I can describe “Just The Once” is to call it regret disco,” says lead singer Emily Haines. “It’s a song for when you need to dance yourself clean. Beneath the sparkling surface, there’s a lyrical exploration of a simple word with many meanings. Once is a word that plays a game of opposites. Once can mean once-upon-a-time and refer to a moment in the past, or it can mean someday, once something happens. And as for doing something only once versus doing something once in a while, well, I think we all know how vast the difference is between the two.”

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 Tellierhave 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.

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 and Nikki Glaser’s HBO Special Good Clean Filth in 2022.

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 London and raised in Toronto, Jimmy Shaw spent the first half of his life immersed in classical music and was accepted at the age of 15 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 Prizesand 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.

TRACK FEATURED BY DJ DREAMDOCTOR ON SENSORIA RADIO | FRIDAY AUGUST 4, 2023

Metric
Formentera II
(Metric Music International/Thirty Tigers)
Release Date:

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