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Photo Credit: Emma McIntyre

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The highly anticipated eighth album by U.S. Girls, the nom de plume of North American multi-disciplinary and experimental pop artist Meg Remy, will be released on 24 February entitled Bless This Mess. A dynamic suite of dexterous melodies and a nuanced artistic response to the complexities of motherhood, Bless This Mess was crafted in tandem with the conception and birth of Remy’s twin boys. It expands the sonic and thematic palette of U.S. Girls, fusing the muses of funk, mythology, and the radical disorientation of joy into an electric tapestry of anthems, aches, and awakenings.

To celebrate the announcement, today U.S. Girls releases the slow jam gem, ‘Futures Bet’ alongside a music video directed by Alex Kingsmill that explores the visual wonder and resiliency of trash. A combination of traditional 3D animation and composited live action footage was fed into various Stable Diffusion deep learning models. Some images in the video have up to six passes of the artificial intelligence reinterpretations at various strengths to create the effect. It co-stars Remy and Carlyn Bezic, who also sings on the track.

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U.S. Girls – ‘Futures Bet’ (Official Video)
Purchase / stream here

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As Remy’s body changed so did her voice; her diaphragm lost breathing room, adjusting to the growing lives inside. Many takes on Bless This Mess were tracked with the babies in utero, or in her arms. (She even samples her breast pump on the album’s poetic closing cut, ‘Pump’). The resulting performances are suffused by the physicality of this journey: more blood, more feelings, the interwoven wonders, and wounds of procreation.

The ten songs on Bless This Mess were pieced together stem by stem with a vast cast of collaborators (Alex Frankel of Holy Ghost!, Marker Starling, Ryland Blackinton of Cobra Starship, Basia Bulat, Roger Manning Jr. of Jellyfish and Beck,) and audio engineers (Neal H Pogue, Ken Sluiter, Steve Chahley, Maximilian Turnbull). Long-time collaborator, husband, and co-parent Turnbull played a key role facilitating these fluid muses. The production throughout is exquisite, warm, and wood-panelled, framing the voice, keys, bass, and rhythms in heightened textural harmony.

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U.S. Girls – ‘Bless This Mess’ (Official Video)
Purchase / stream here

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Bless This Mess will be available on February 24 digitally, on CD and on black and opaque red vinyl, with the latter exclusively available from independent retailers. The vinyl features an interactive die cut sleeve that reveals an exclusive full version of the cover’s imagery.

Pre-order / pre-save Bless This Mess here

U.S. Girls
Bless This Mess

Only Daedalus
Just Space For Light
Screen Face feat. Michael Rault
Futures Bet
So Typically Now
Bless This Mess
Tux (Your Body Fills Me, Boo)
 RIP Roy G Biv feat. Marker Starling
St James Way
Pump feat. Alanna Stuart

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U.S. Girls – ‘So Typically Now’ (Offical Video)
Purchase / stream here

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Follow U.S. Girls
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter

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About U.S. GIRLS

Originally from Illinois, Meg Remy is established as one of the most acclaimed songwriters and performers to emerge from Toronto’s eclectic underground music scene where she currently lives. As the creative force behind the musical entity U.S. Girls, her celebrated discography spans 15 years from early experimental works released on the Siltbreeze label, and includes three Polaris Prize shortlisted albums released by 4AD: Half Free (2015), In A Poem Unlimited (2018), and Heavy Light (2020). All three albums also garnered Juno nominations for Best Alternative Album. Meg has toured extensively through Europe and North America, establishing a reputation for politically astute commentary and theatrical performances with her extended U.S. Girls band, named the best live act of 2018 by Paste Magazine. During this time Remy has maintained a visual arts practice, exhibiting collage work and directing several music videos and other video art works including her short film Woman’s Advocate (2014), in which she also performed. Recently Remy published her first book, a memoir called Begin By Telling (2021). As a platform and persona, U.S. Girls operates on a uniquely out-of-time wavelength, alternately wronged and rueful, classic but contemporary, bruised vignettes of poetic Americana through a feminist lens. Bless This Mess marks both a divergence from and deepening of Remy’s songbook, more at peace with her restless truths and moods.

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AMNPLIFY – ML