“Bodies, birth, death, machines. Those are four immense things we have in common.” (‘Outro, The Let Down‘). Since Meghan Remy (a.k.a U.S Girls) gave birth to twins during the Covid pandemic, it has made the Toronto-dwelling musician observe the creation of life and the process of making music with a different outlook. Remy as a new mother has started to see the world of as a series of unstoppable yet quirky cycles that in her own words on U.S Girls’ new album’s finale: “we didn’t choose but must live through.” She goes on to say that the prolific project’s eight release Bless This Mess “is a celebration of this bond” of life rotations that connect all human beings. Despite the never-ending loop of humans experiencing nativity, fight for survival and cessation, Remy embraces and laughs at the notion in a fun, wonderfully bizarre and eclectic record that although has deep – as in most cases with U.S Girls – intellectual meaning, is approached with free-spiritedness and occasional silliness to show that she is unafraid to show a less serious side to her music methods.
Furthermore, one of Meghan Remy‘s aims is for Bless This Mess to relate as many people as possible, so she could be talking to be straightforward solemn adults, technology-embracing teenagers (with the sounds of notifications and mention of YouTube thumb downs) or her own children as she tucks them in for bedtime, as pointed out when she monologues on album closer ‘Outro, The Let Down’: “this one’s for you, and you, and you, and you and you and you and you too, yeah and you and you…”.
‘Screen Face’ and ‘So Typically Now’, poke fun at awkward circumstances during Covid. The former is about online dating and how the Coronavirus pandemic restricted lovebirds into having relationships only behind screens, despite the fact that sometimes their companion only lived a few blocks away. “This is not a date. So whatcha be calling this?” Remy cheekily queries before the song turns into a call-and-response with Canadian singer-songwriter Michael Rault playing the character of the online boyfriend singing: “You don’t live far away, might as well be thousands of miles. I’m starting to love you but what is love that is online?” Then it turns into a duet in the chorus, with the two naïve souls singing about simulating love. It has an innocence about it that is made more wholesome by it sounding like it could composed on simple children’s toy instruments. The latter ‘So Typically Now’ observes tuttingly the sudden panic shown by the wealthy residents of densely populated cities, namedropping Brooklyn as an example, and how they “moved upstate” to greener areas and “sold off your condos”. Remy is also snarky when calling the cowardly leavers “traitors with loans”. As a matter of fact the song was produced by Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser of the Brooklyn-based synth-pop group Holy Ghost! Through the snappy drums, synthesizers and gospely backing vocals make it sound like the Pet Shop Boys producing 1990’s soulful-dance music.
Wild and humorously unique disco anthem ‘Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo)’ connects two songwriting techniques used by Meghan Remy on Bless This Mess. It comments on the fact that many people didn’t go out very much and therefore left many of their smart clothes unworn. However, the perspective of the song is from the tuxedo itself. Yeah, you read that right! Lamenting and criticises its owner, it sounds like the tuxedo sees themself as a ashamedly hidden and discarded lover: “Oh, I’m lonely suffocating in this plastic bag. It’s been so long since I felt my man! I wish he would put me on and wear me out ‘Cause I don’t know how long I can hang around. I belong here with the rest of you off the red cloth. Cause I’m a custome, how dare you!.” Beginning like a William Orbit song, it becomes the offspring of Sister Sledge, Roísín Murphy and Chromeo. It’s hilarious yet dance-floor ready.
It’s followed by another song that adds personification to something unusual. ’R.I.P Roy G. Biv’ – which is performed with Marker Starling – gives a human identity to rainbows. ‘Roy G.Biv’ is a mnemonic that helps people remember the colours of a rainbow and the song documents as if it was a “gentlemen’s gentleman” that is born, shines and then dies like humans. Remy acknowledges the silliness of this observation when singing “now I found out that rainbows must die, yeah the ones arching over the sky, even they must say goodbye.”This is before the rainbow starts talking through the use of a Daft Punk style vocoder before facing his fate. This is the probably first time you’ve been made to feel sorry for a rainbow.
The most wild experimentation of disco music is found on the audacious ‘Pump’. A song that accounts Meghan Remy’s breastfeeding through both of lyrics and its use of, and here is a first, a breast pump. The vibrating suction sound of a breast pump is used as the bass of the track in which the new mother speaks about the experience of feeding her twins. The composition of the song may be bold but the words spoken are wonderfully unpretentious. Speaking about the struggles and the banal mothering activity, she sings “Talking about two babies at once and for ninth months they didn’t prepare me / They turned to me and said momma I’m hungry, I need something to eat / How does the milk make it to your mouth?” before instructing herself to “pump! pump!” the machine.
Something that Meghan Remy – whom has shown political rage on past albums – has refreshingly learnt during Covid and pregnancy and wants to teach us on Bless This Mess is the idea of calming down and accepting the world’s chaos. The musician shares a phone with her husband in attempt to minimalize internet doom-scrolling. On the rock-edged ‘Futures Bet’, she instructs “breathing in, breathing out” before telling us: “When nothing is wrong, everything is fine. This is just life”. Title track ‘Bless This Mess’ and ‘St James Way’ also teach us to let go of trying to dictate life’s cycles. The former, which sounds like the theme tune to an American drama from the 1980s, perhaps compares the disorganization of the world with the cleaning chores of a housewife saying to herself “awww, bless this mess.” While the Charlotte Gainsbourg-esque latter ‘St James Way’ imagines what if, one day, you start following a group who are endlessly walking to an unknown location. No questions asked and no more overthinking. There’s something blissful about accepting the unknown and letting life’s cycles do their thing.