U.S. Girls

Experimental songwriter Meghan Remy founded U.S. Girls, a Polaris Music Prize nominee whose trajectory shifted from a raw, abrasive one-person outfit to an expansive, theatrical pop ensemble. Her interest in girl group melodrama and eerie soul music progressed beyond the hazy early experiments into intricate arrangements and meticulous art-pop production across the 2018 album In a Poem Unlimited and the 2020 release Heavy Light, while 2023’s Bless This Mess incorporated abstracted disco and R&B elements.

Remy launched U.S. Girls as a solo endeavor in Philadelphia during late 2007. Equipped with a massive reel-to-reel tape machine, her initial shows relied on tape loops of rudimentary percussion alongside vocals that veered between confrontational and brooding. That period yielded the Siltbreeze albums Introducing in 2008 and Go Grey in 2010, plus a string of 7-inch singles, cassettes, and CD-Rs issued by smaller imprints. She crisscrossed the United States and Europe repeatedly, hauling the temperamental reel-to-reel and occasionally relying on Greyhound buses for travel.

Although the abrasive tape work stayed central, 2011’s U.S. Girls on Kraak introduced sample-driven material and a clearer vocal focus that signaled an impending shift. The 2012 FatCat album Gem realized that shift, matching the evolution already audible in increasingly ambitious live shows. By then Remy had moved to Toronto alongside her husband, Slim Twig—Canadian musician Max Turnbull—who produced the record. It marked the project’s clearest fidelity yet, replacing abrasive drum machines and distorted vocals with live-band recording techniques and straightforward renditions of glam rock alongside ’60s AM radio pop. Performances likewise expanded from solo sets to full-band configurations.

In 2013 U.S. Girls issued the four-song EP Free Advice Column, co-produced with frequent associate Onakabazien (Louis Percival) and released on Bad Actors Inc. The indie imprint 4AD signed the project in 2015 and put out the dubby single “Damn That Valley.” September brought the full-length Half Free, which broadened the music’s reach while preserving the earlier dark atmosphere and idiosyncratic tape loops; the album earned a Polaris Music Prize shortlist nomination. After an eight-piece tour, Remy reduced reliance on samples and worked instead with a live ensemble drawn partly from the freewheeling improv collective the Cosmic Range. Lyrics addressed contemporary social and political tensions, resulting in the widely praised 2018 album In a Poem Unlimited.

Early 2020 saw the arrival of seventh album Heavy Light, another eclectic heady-pop set featuring an expanded roster of backing vocalists and exploring hindsight and nostalgia; it became her third consecutive Polaris shortlist entry. In 2021 U.S. Girls contributed a version of the Birthday Party’s “Junkyard” to the 4AD tribute compilation Bills & Aches & Blues. The 2022 single “So Typically Now,” which included backing vocals from soul singer Kyle Kidd, preceded eighth studio album Bless This Mess. Created while Remy was pregnant and gave birth to twins, the record interwove themes of motherhood, technology, and mythology. Its dancefloor emphasis framed her characteristically fluid melodies with disco rhythms, layered synth leads, and catchy R&B-derived hooks. Members of Holy Ghost!, Cobra Starship, and Jellyfish participated, and 4AD released the album in February 2023.