U.S. GIRLS Announces New Album Scratch It Out June 20 Via 4AD
Toronto-based producer, film composer, and author Meg Remy announces her intuitive and adventurous U.S. Girls album Scratch It (out June 20) with the release of an epic and sprawling 12-minute lead single, ' Bookends '.
Co-written with Edwin de Goeji, ' Bookends ' is the heart of Scratch It. The sprawling ballad pays tribute to Remy's late friend and former Power Trip frontman Riley Gale, through the lens of Remy's reading of John Carey's Eyewitness To History, a historical collection of 300+ eyewitness accounts of great world events spanning twenty-four centuries. In consuming these first-hand accounts of human history, she began to ponder the thought, 'there is not a hierarchy to suffering, and death is the great equaliser.'
' Bookends ' is also accompanied by a cinematic short directed by Caity Arthur. They explain,' The video is ultimately about death and absolution — how death is one of the only certain things in life; the 'great equaliser,' nolens volens. However, it also subverts the traditional narrative of death as a despairing void, rather, portraying it as a euphoric transitory experience or new beginning through a hallucinatory ensemble cast, a 1960s pop-star performance, and sleight of hand magic. As the video progresses, the TV channels alternate through these scenes as Meg's lyrics evoke death in its various forms.'
When an artist follows her instinct, rather than money or trends, she can find inspiration anywhere. When Remy was asked to play a festival in Hot Springs, Arkansas — over one thousand miles away from her Toronto home — it was instinct that led her to enlist guitarist friend Dillon Watson (D. Watusi, Savoy Motel, Jack Name) to assemble a one-time Nashville-based band for the occasion. The performance went so well that she decided to ride that energy right back to where the impromptu band had initially rehearsed, in Music City itself, kickstarting the journey toward Scratch It.
In just ten days, Remy and the band — Watson on guitar, Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, Loretta Lynn) on bass, Domo Donoho on drums, and both Jo Schornikow and Tina Norwood on keys, as well as harmonica legend Charlie McCoy (Elvis, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison) — recorded Scratch It live off the floor with minimal overdubs, mixed to tape. Closeness and ease emanate from this core band with Remy's singular voice sparkling on top of every tune, the most relaxed it has ever been.
Scratch It weaves together country, gospel, garage rock, soul, disco, folk balladry, and more, with Remy's masterful songwriting threaded throughout. Her choice to discard the computer-based production of previous albums in favor of two-inch tape serves the songs well, introducing an element of sonic shapeshifting expected from an artist nearly twenty years into making records. If instinct was an instrument, Remy would be a virtuoso. Scratch It and see.
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