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I was wondering if you knew anything about Amy Millan's solo record, Honey From the Tombs, that was supposed to be released either in the Spring or Summer of last year? Has it been released? If not, do you know when it's being released? I'm interested in all things Amy, and am hoping that you may have heard something about it in your travels...

I found this article which gives some details about the album:

AMY MILLAN

Title : Honey From The Tombs

Advance Buzz : Johnny Cash meets PJ Harvey

Release Date : Spring 2004?

Toronto-bred belter Amy Millan has spent years sharing the spotlight, ever since she found her sea legs as the leader of indie alt-rock unit 16 Tons. More recently, she's cooed sweetly at the front of Montreal soft revolutionaries Stars and oozed broken sex-goddess appeal with her take on Leslie Feist's luscious-lady vocal lines at Broken Social Scene shows. Finally, this year she's dropping the Ian Blurton-produced solo album that indie circles have been buzzing about. Her independent aspirations are no secret to most – Millan's been writing her own tunes since high school, when she and best friend Emily Haines (of Metric) strummed out teen angst anthems on their guitars.

More surprising is the fact the indie pop poster chick's claim that she's a country girl at heart.

"I used to live with Dan and Jenny (Whiteley, of Crazy Strings bluegrass fame), and I love writing sad songs," she explains over brunch in a pub on Parliament. "There's hope in 'em, but there's also a universal sadness that comes from living in Cabbagetown and seeing the differences between the rich and the poor, and the drunks who live on the streets.

"It's inside of me because I've walked by it every day since I was a kid. I'm drawn to these people who are human but broken because they've lost their souls to booze or lovers or whatever. It breaks my heart, and that feels good."

Millan recruited old pal Dan Whiteley and his Crazy Strings cronies to help out with the lonesome-heart twangers on her disc, whose sparse, layered guitars, she says, pay tribute to Johnny Cash's American recordings.

But for the other half of the album, made up of poppier material that has more in common with her own recent work than with anything by the Man in Black, Millan put together a totally different band. Broken buddies Kevin Drew, Charles Spearin (also of Do Make Say Think) and Brendan Canning help flesh out her un-country ditties.

"I just hope there's a cohesiveness," she groans. "That's the only thing that worries me, because I'm so eclectic within myself. I just want to make sure it's a whole record."

That's where producer Blurton, who's worked with everyone from the Weakerthans to the Illuminati, comes in. Millan hopes he'll help make sense of her musical schizophrenia.

She's still searching for the perfect moniker for her solo act. After ditching the Lady Lustre label she's been performing under for the past year, Millan toyed with Broken Oiseau (too similar to Broken Social Scene) and her own name, "but it's too much like Aimee Mann," she sighs. But Millan's set on the album name, Honey From The Tombs, which, it should be stated, has no connection to Rocket from the Tombs.

"It came out of an interview with Tom Waits. He talked about how archaeologists were excavating some Egyptian tombs and discovered all these mummies had been buried with honey. When they took the honey out, they found it was as sweet as it'd been when the bodies were buried. It doesn't go bad. Tom compared the honey to songs on one of his records that had been around for years. It's kinda like me – some of these songs date back to the 16 Tons days. One of them is from when I was 21, so they've been around for a long time."

Don't assume dropping the solo disc means she's dumping her other projects. Millan and her Stars bandmates head to a rented house/studio in Quebec's Eastern Townships in January, where they'll lay down demos for their next album, tentatively set to drop in the fall of 2004.

"We don't really know what it sounds like yet. We always talk about how we're going to write a solo record or we're going to write more songs about fucking or whatever, and there are a few more aggressive songs. But we're just people who like to write pretty pop songs, so we're never going to move too far away from that."

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Cool. My first live Weir experience... If Trey shows up I will officially lose my shit... (Or be utterly disappointed, one of the two...) We'll talk this week. It would be cool to meet Vermontdave, finally. I am actually quite stoked about this... Cheers Hux!

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I'm digging that you're getting into this stuff. I have to admit I am a die hard Feist fan having corresponded with her off and on for probably five years believe it or not and I have a monster crush on her but I prefer Amy's version of 7/4 (Shoreline) to Feist's which will be on the record.

I'm presuming you've read this interview with Amy or maybe you haven't. It just mentions the album in the excerpt below but there's some good stuff about Stars.

Splendid: Cool. What's going on with your solo album, Honey From The Tombs?

Amy Millan: I'm finished all the tracking. It's being mixed in the next two weeks. It should be mastered by April and hopefully it will be out in... maybe the summer?

Splendid: Are you going to tour that one, as well?

Amy Millan: Yeah, it's going to be very exciting.

Splendid: How does it sound compare to Stars?

Amy Millan: I don't think it sounds anything like Stars. (The songs from Honey From The Tombs) are songs I wrote seven years ago or more, so all of those songs were written before I'd even joined Stars and, uh, it's been a long time coming.

Splendid: Yeah, people have been waiting. There was all this excitement about the album, we were all expecting it last year --

Amy Millan: Oh, I know, but I've been very busy. I've been on tour with Broken Social Scene, I've been on tour with Stars, so I'm finally ready to settle down and do the record.

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The link isn't working for me...

I'm just starting to get into Feist, but I've been digging what I've heard so far... BSS is still my favorite of the Arts & Crafts groups, but I've really been digging Stars since Bluesfest... I just got my hands on another Stars album last night, A Lot Of Little Lies For The Sake Of One Big Truth, and I was also able to grab my first live Stars show, 2005-04-02, an in-studio radio show they did for KEXP in Seattle, WA... I think I now have all of the Stars albums, including Dead Child Stars, which was apparently only available at live shows... Amy's voice is just so amazing to me... Feist definitely suited BSS but seeing Amy play with them at Bluesfest has convinced me that she'll be able to take over the female vocals with no problem at all... I look forward to hearing Amy's solo album, hopefully it will be released soon and I'll be able to catch her performing it live...

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