Post Everything by Luke Haines

A second volume of autobiography (following on from 2010's Bad Vibes), in which the conflicted artiste furthers his career as the doyen of self-sabotage. Signed to a different label for each of his bands as well as pursuing other apparently doomed projects, he lurches from one body-blow to the next, his only protection steel-capped self-belief. Whenever a straight path to success opens up (record an album, release a single, promote it, have a hit) Haines veers into the undergrowth of resentment, wild benders and counter-intuitive behaviour. Perhaps it's a way of insulating himself from the insane ups and downs to which, as a minor popstar, he is subject: money is promised, then evaporates, he is dropped by labels, "undropped", then frozen out again. Haines's capacity to make us believe that he really doesn't care renders this whole mad world strangely charming. Rather than being chewed up and spat out by the music business, you feel it's him doing the chewing and spitting. As he says: "The inside is bad. Outside is good."