U.S. Girls: A fresh perspective

“Nos mienten sobre el ayer para que no entendamos el mañana,” is the refrain that sits at the centre of U.S. Girls’ new album, swirling around a concoction of marimbas, oscillating synths and a beat that walks with purpose. The Spanish-sung lyrics, taken from the song And Yet It Moves/Y Se Mueve, translate to “they lie to us about yesterday so that we don’t understand tomorrow”, a musing on the importance of reflection, all the more vital in a polarised society. It’s this notion, to keep one eye on the past to bolster our futures, that is the beating heart of Heavy Light, Meghan Remy’s eighth LP as U.S. Girls.

“Hindsight is a powerful thing. The world is constantly presenting you with ideas – that is, if you’re listening,” explains Remy, as we talk over a glass of wine in a central London tapas restaurant. For her, hindsight is both a cultural and personal phenomena. She has just quit smoking after almost 20 years, she’s doing yoga, going to therapy, and reading In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. The ongoing journey to self-improvement runs parallel with, intriguingly, a new desire to revisit her previous work. “I feel lucky as an artist to have this huge back catalogue with records that act as physical milestones, that I can pinpoint these important life moments, put some tracks on and know where I was and what four-track tape I had, and how I felt shitty or really fucking great.”

Remy first surfaced as U.S. Girls in 2007, though the Illinois-born, Toronto-based artist was at least four musical projects into her career even then. She started out, aged 15, in a riot grrrl-influenced band named Slut Muffin. She went on to traverse the local band circuit in Chicago, before relocating to Toronto, where she expanded on her growing avant-pop sensibilities. The fuzzy tape-loop experimentations of Remy’s early work – from 2008’s Gravel Days to 2012’s Gem – segued into more accessible but playfully experimental pop and biting, dark disco. This shift culminated in her expansive and celebrated sixth album, Half Free – all with her DIY spirit intact.

Half Free, her first release with renowned label 4AD, dabbled with 60s girl group choruses and freefalling glam rock solos. But it was its follow-up, In a Poem Unlimited, that saw her fully embrace the subversive promise of pop music. The album’s political barbs, stealthily buried like razor blades between disco grooves, served as a document of women’s anger; a rallying cry, and act of defiance, in the face of systemic oppression. Each blistering track presents broken but unbeaten everywoman characters, fighting both capitalism and duplicitous men. Somehow, it was Remy’s greatest success.

Heavy Light, by comparison to its predecessor’s full-throated howl of rage, is a far less intense record. “I knew that after In a Poem Unlimited I wanted to strip back to vocals and percussion,” she explains. More importantly, and perhaps most tellingly, Remy chose to cover three of her own tracks on Heavy Light. These are Statehouse (It’s a Man’s World), Red Ford Radio and Overtime. “It was exciting to explore whether the meaning would remain intact, or totally change. We tell ourselves, ‘Oh, if I had a time machine I would go and change this thing…’ But would I? It was interesting to get the opportunity to do exactly that.”

Re-recording Overtime, a 2013 track which tells a visceral story of a partner drinking away money – Remy has always had a way with narrative – came after a failed attempt at finding a spa during a studio break. It led to a chance meeting with a dancer from the song’s original video, a curious coincidence that felt like fate. “It was so refreshing to revisit a track about this fraught relationship with my older perspective. I felt lighter.” Most notable, though, is her Red Ford Radio rework – an act of renewal that transforms the fuzzy, no wave-ish original first heard on her 2010 album Go Grey. Remy’s voice sits much higher in the mix, the chilling lyrics undisguised by grit or grain: “I don’t care about nothing,” she sings, creating a kind of strange double, seemingly reviving a previous character she has embodied, while also holding it at arm’s length.

The majority of Heavy Light, Remy explains, was written during the highly theatrical Poem tour, when her ideas were at their most ambitious and adventurous. Hitting on a new way of writing and recording, she called on 20 session musicians and a large group of backing vocalists to collaborate with her in the studio, as well as longtime collaborators Steve Chahley, Tony Price and husband Max Turnbull. “It was a huge challenge, even just managing a large group’s emotions and needs,” she admits. “It’s so eye-opening to go over these tracks that I attach such personal meaning to, and hear others reflect their own selves in them.”

Crucially, this creative re-evaluation was mapped onto a different sound palette. Eager not to repeat herself, she abandoned In a Poem Unlimited’s MO of disguising political rage within slick, stylised pop songwriting. “I don’t want to do that again,” explains Remy, swirling a toothpick around a bowl of artichoke hearts. “It was great, I learned a lot but I knew that for [Heavy Light] it needed to be almost not
about how it sounds, and more about capturing the performances as they were and sitting with what that means.”

The result is high-drama sax riffs, full-bodied choral refrains and a funk-heavy rhythm section. Shedding her cast of characters and their psychodramas, Remy mines her own life experiences – kicking back against the ideals imposed on women’s bodies in Slate House, while textured conversations on consent play out on the lush balladry of I.O.U. “She could have never, ever known, we’d over-reap what she’d sown,” Remy sings defiantly, railing against lofty expectations of emotional labour on Quiver to the Bomb. Advice to Teenage Self is a gorgeously intimate patchwork of Remy’s recorded interviews with the vocalists about their childhood, which she then stitched into her own personal narrative. Above all, the rich orchestral production on Heavy Light is carried by a choir of voices – “a lot of queer folks, a beautiful summer camp vibe” – that made sessions feel like much- needed group therapy.

“I knew I would cry a lot,” she admits, exhaling through closed teeth and stabbing another olive with a toothpick. “Sometimes we would do a take and I’d feel so emotionally drained, but then we would have to sit and technically deconstruct it. Like, dude, you’re saying the mic needs to go here or whatever, and I’m freaking out about the 34 years I’ve just injected into the record!” She smiles at this, and reveals how the creative relationship between herself and Turnbull has evolved. “He’s a Leo, I’m a Cancer!” she laughs, pointing to the tiny crab tattoo on her wrist. “We’ve relied on being emotionally and creatively intuitive in the past, but we made consent much more explicit this time around. That was tough after 20 years, and he stepped away for a lot of the process, then came back to mix. We made an altogether better record for it.”

Remy credits the deeply personal and collaborative journey that marks her latest chapter to somatic experiencing, an alternative therapy that is meant to alleviate physical and mental stress by bringing a person’s focus to their bodily sensations. “I’m always trying to make things that I want to see or things that would help myself, especially as a woman,” she explains. “If I want people to accept themselves, I have to do it myself. This was the first time I wasn’t scared to be really earnest, erase a persona.” Is she ashamed about the past personas she has performed? She pauses to think, running a finger over her the rim of her wine glass. “I’m older now and living in a world where so many people are deciding to be brave and tell their stories. I have that responsibility too. I was doing a lot of preaching when I was younger, and that became a persona I wanted to get away from. I don’t have all the answers that I thought I once had. I was angry, and anger makes you loud.”

Photography: Michelle Helena Janssen