After years as a cult icon, lo-fi pop queen Meg Remy is confronting her demons – and taking them overground…
Welcome to the warped world of Meg Rhemy’s U.S. Girls. After pressing play on her new album ‘Half Free’ – her first on the 4AD label – an army of synthesised drones whirr into life. Atop a towering beat fit for MIA at her most intense, the Canadian songwriter describes the heartache of a woman discovering her husband has bedded her sisters: “Now I’m gonna hang myself from my family tree,” she sings, sounding at once burned and beaten.
U.S. Girls started as Rhemy’s home recording project in 2007. Her first album ‘Introducing’ was released the following year. The unapologetically DIY collection had more in common with fellow leftfield oddball Dean Blunt’s esoteric noise experimentations than the sparkling avant-pop she makes now.
Things changed for Rhemy after a collaboration with Toronto-based producer Onakabazien on 2013’s ‘Free Advice Column’ EP. Together, they cast the commercial melodies of ’60s girl groups like The Shangri-Las through a prism of dubby soundscapes and forged an altogether headier new sound.
With Onakabazien back helming ‘Half Free’, that sound is richly refined. There’s a hotchpotch of references: ‘Sed Knife’ sounds like Blondie colliding with Misfits in a blaze of six-stringed hedonism, while ‘Woman’s Work’ rivals the kosmische jazz odysseys of Kraftwerk for their arresting sublimity.
“We’re in the post-post-modern world and everyone’s gonna understand what we’re referencing,” she tells NME. “We’ve consumed lots of things that everyone else has, but we process it differently. It’s focusing on that individuality and trying to express it.”
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