The trajectory of transformation achieved by Meg Remy under her U.S. Girls banner is as sweeping as it is singular, unrivalled by nearly any North American artist of the past two decades. From crusty, crouch-core basement floors in Philadelphia and Chicago, crooning through delay pedals over grainy loops, to touring the planet as front woman for an explosive eight-piece art-soul orchestra, her vision and craft have honed ceaselessly over the project's 15-year existence. Remy's latest creation expands the palette even further, fusing the muses of funk, motherhood, Greek myth, slow jams, and the radical disorientation of joy into an electric tapestry of anthems, aches, and awakenings: Bless This Mess.
U.S. Girls operates on a uniquely out-of-time wavelength, alternately wronged and rueful, classic but contemporary, bruised vignettes of poetic Americana through a feminist lens. Bless This Mess marks both a divergence from and deepening of Remy's songbook, more at peace with her restless truths and moods. Long-time collaborator (as well as vocal engineer, multi-instrumentalist, husband, and co-parent) Maximilian Turnbull plays a key role facilitating these fluid muses. As artists and partners their rapport at this point is thoroughly symbiotic, able to tap into subtle veins of humor and heaviness, rhythm, and reverie.
Conceived in tandem with the conception and birth of twin boys, the songs were pieced together stem by stem with a vast cast of collaborators (Alex Frankel of Holy Ghost!, MarkerStarling, Ryland Blackinton of Cobra Starship, Basia Bulat, Roger Manning Jr. of Jellyfish and Beck,) and audio engineers (Neal H Pogue, Ken Sluiter, Steve Chahley, Maximilian Turnbull).
1. Only Daedalus
2. Just Space For Light
3. Screen Face feat. Michael Rault
4. Futures Bet
5. So Typically Now
6. Bless This Mess
7. Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo)
8. RIP Roy G Biv feat. Marker Starling
9. St James Way
10. Pump feat. Alanna Stuart