Meg Remy of U.S. Girls U.S. born, Toronto-based Remy releases her sixth album, the remarkably vibrant and lush In a Poem Unlimited, comes out via 4AD and Royal Mountain Records in a couple weeks. The first single is a funky disco tune called “Mad As Hell”… so she’s been asked about women, and anything about women currently, quite a bit. “It just so happens that right now a lot of the things I’ve been talking about for the past ten years of doing this project are all coming to a head in the mainstream consciousness,” she says.
Talking about #MeToo, is that it could quickly become a monetized and opportunistic hashtag, not at all what Tarana Burke intended. “The real interesting thing could be if #MeToo and feminism, and these kind of topics, could evolve another level where they start critiquing all the systems in place and how this relates to people of color, workers, [issues] across the board. While Remy is fine to ride for causes she’s been championing for years personally, it’s entirely another thing when her politics, especially in today’s discourse, are more prominently entangled with her art.
The second track to be heard from the album, ‘Woman’s Work’, debuts today, accompanied by another
hypnotic video directed and edited by Remy. Following up on the release of the mutant dub of ‘Damn That Valley’ earlier this year, ‘Woman’s Work’ builds further anticipation and intrigue; Remy has delivered a nagging, arpeggio-laced stormer, picking away at the themes of beauty and neurosis, with a video that examines our collective paralysis in the face of ageing.
Her last record, was the critically acclaimed Half Free, was so searing in its portrayal of the female experience—of the Everywoman, as it were—that an expectation is there now for her to contribute going forward.
In A Poem Unlimited builds on and maintains a portrait of a more intimate self but it is a much fuller, ornate record. Remy sings about personally affecting, relatable experiences, like on “Pearly Gates,” a jazzy glam song that got its inspiration from an anecdote she’d heard about a man promising to pull out during sex. (“Peter bragged he was good at pulling out/ He always knew the right time to take a bow,” she sings.) On “L-Over,” reminiscent of a yesteryear pop break-up tune, with a swooping airy intro and horns, Remy sings, slyly, almost a smirk to cover the pain, “Can you imagine trying to get some satisfaction out of a stone?” Her music sounds plucked from 60s pop, a time so emboldened by innocence and nostalgia, While recording “Velvet For Sale,” Remy physically positioned herself in a contorted position for us to vocally hear what the character was going through; that breathy, quiet tone singing, “You’ve been sleeping with one eye open because he always could come back, ya know? And you’ve been walking these streets unguarded waiting for any man to explode.”
Remy’s goal on this record was to push herself out of her comfort zone. “It was more… about being in a studio and working with a band and challenging myself more that way—which was, you know, I’ve not much experienced the studio setting,” she says. “I’m not a technical kind of musician. I don’t really work in that way. Going into a studio with a lot of players who have the experience and know what they are doing was very intimidating.”
