With her debut album, "With Love and Squalor", Mia Sheard arrives as one of Toronto's best new singer-songwriters. Co-produced by Sheard with Juno award winning producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda (Rheostatics, Barenaked Ladies, Spirit Of The West, Ashley MacIsaac) the album showcases Sheard's dynamic, powerful vocals and unique lyrical insights.

"With Love And Squalor" takes it's title from 'For Esme, With Love And Squalor', from J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories. Sheard's song, "Seymour" is similarly based on another Salinger story.

Says Sheard, "It's based on A Perfect Day For Bananafish. Salinger was a big influence, I became obsessed with his stories and the drama of his writing. It expressed immense emotion but in a very subtle way so that it made the emotion even more extreme, because it was suppressed." Extreme emotion rains over With Love And Squalor's ten tracks. Swinging from intimate whispers to full throated declarations Sheard's voice and lyrics are supported by musical textures that range from
delicate ambiance to flat out rock.

Mia Sheard is backed on With Love and Squalor by a testosterone-charged band composed of Kurt Swinghammer, Dan Cornelius and Paddy Flynn, with Rheostatics' guitarist Martin Tielli also lending his unique textures to many tracks.