New Album Out May 8

Dr Dee, a new studio album by Damon Albarn, will be released May 8 by Virgin Records on CD and vinyl or as a digital download.

Dr Dee is an 18 track work inspired by the life of John Dee (1527–1608), mathematician, alchemist, philosopher and advisor to Elizabeth I.  Dee is a singular enigma: an Englishman so influential that he defined how we measure years, so quintessential that he lives on in Shakespeare’s words; yet so shrouded in mystery that he’s fallen from the very pages of history itself.

Described by Albarn as “strange pastoral folk,” the music of Dr Dee is a fitting companion to the end of another Elizabethan age. The album combines Albarn’s voice with early English choral and instrumentation alongside modern, West African and Renaissance sounds. Dr Dee was recorded late last year in Albarn’s West London studio and also in Salford with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. The album was mixed by Valgeir Sigursson in Reykjavik.

The full track listing is:

1. The Golden Dawn
2. Apple Carts
3. Oh Spirit Animate Us
4. The Moon Exalted
5. A Man of England
6. Saturn
7. Coronation
8. The Marvelous Dream
9. A Prayer
10. Edward Kelley
11. Preparation
12. 9 Point Star
13. Temptation Comes In The Afternoon
14. Watching the Fire That Waltzed Away
15. Moon (Interlude)
16. Cathedrals
17. Tree Of Life
18. The Dancing King

View trailer here: http://youtu.be/Zskz5TCaxLE

Damon Albarn will perform songs from the album Dr Dee at OneFest in the UK on April 14th alongside singers and musicians featured on the album, including Madou Diabate. www.onefestuk.com

A stage production created by Albarn and Rufus Norris, depicting Dee’s fall from prominence to poverty and isolation, which showcased to critical acclaim at the Manchester International Festival last year, will play at English National Opera this summer as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Performance dates for Dr Dee at the London Coliseum are: 25th, 26th, 28th and 29th June and 4th, 6th and 7th July 2012.

JACK WHITE, KAREN ELSON, JOHN REILLY & FRIENDS, THE BLACK BELLES & SPECIAL GUESTS WHITE RABBITS, ELECTRIC GUEST & MORE

FRIDAY, MARCH 16TH AT THE STAGE ON 6TH IN AUSTIN

Friday, March 16 will go down in history as the date of The Third Man Records Texas Show Down at The Stage on 6th in Austin, TX. The first ever Third Man SXSW showcase–arranged in cooperation with From The Basement and Nasty Little Man–and featuring TMR artists Jack White, Karen Elson, John Reilly & Friends (featuring Becky Stark & Tom Brosseau), The Black Belles, Pujol and Lanie Lane, and special guests including White Rabbits and Electric Guest. The show will start at 7:30. See the poster below for the full lineup.

The Third Man Rolling Record Store will also return to Austin this year beginning Wednesday March 14; dealing out records, exclusive goods and some brand new SXSW-only Rolling Record Store merchandise, and of course pulling up to the TMR gala on the 16th. Check the Rolling Record Store twitter account ( https://twitter.com/#!/ThirdManRRS) for its whereabouts throughout the festival.

*************************************************************

ANNOUNCE NEW STUDIO ALBUM

SYNTHETICA

TO BE RELEASED ON JUNE 12th, 2012

*(high res quality media photo available via link below)

METRIC has confirmed June 12th, 2012 as the North American release date for their fifth, full-length studio album, Synthetica.

Following the success of their last album Fantasies, which was self-released outside Canada and sold well over a million albums/singles worldwide, Synthetica will continue the trend and be released through the band’s own label (with joint venture partner Mom + Pop in the USA).

While many artists feel strangled by the industry’s power structure, the Toronto-based quartet has undone all their business entanglements and started their own company, Metric Music International (MMI) with the help of independent managers Mathieu Drouin and Françoise de Grandpré.

On Fantasies, they became the first artist in history to achieve their first ever Top 20 hit at U.S. commercial radio without the backing of a traditional label; sold out arenas and headlined festivals; picked up JUNO Awards for “Alternative Album of the Year” and “Band of the Year”; had a hand in scoring films for everyone from Edgar Wright to David Cronenberg, and wrote the theme song for the Grammy nominated and Academy Award shortlisted Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack with composer Howard Shore. They even performed “Gimme Sympathy” at a private event for the Queen of England.

Work on Synthetica began literally the day after the Fantasies tour ended in Miami at the Art Basel modern art festival in November 2010. METRIC’s Emily Haines, Jimmy Shaw, Joules Scott Key and Joshua Winstead returned to Giant Studios in Toronto and work on the album concluded a year later at New York’s Electric Lady Studios. Synthetica was produced by Jimmy Shaw and mixed by John O’Mahony.

Shaw describes Synthetica’s enthralling balance of futuristic and organic sound on the new record as “[…] the culmination of everything we’ve done. We’ve always had a sound in our heads that we hoped to realize. We finally heard it coming back out of the speakers this time.” Haines first envisioned the word “Synthetica” as the name for a particularly resilient skin-job from Blade Runner, a female replicant who voices an inner monologue of all your human imperfections. “If you imagine a nightmarishly fake version of me as a pop star, that’s her,” she says.  “And this record was about me saying, I’m going to give more to the music than ever, but there’s no way I’m going to turn into someone like that.” As she sings on the album’s hard-rocking title track; “We’re all the time confined to fit the mold / But I won’t ever let them make a loser of my soul.”

Further details of the album, tour dates, and more will be announced shortly.

Check back at: http://www.ilovemetric.com/

For high res media photo, by Brantley Gutierrez available for download at:

http://www.ilovemetric.com/press