“You gotta dance til you feel better.” So begins ‘Like James Said’, the James Brown quoting opener to Meg Remy’s latest album as U.S. Girls, ‘Scratch It’. While it might be more appropriate to categorise the nine tracks that comprise the record as hyper-emotional pop music, they also occasionally scratch the urge to dance. “Stretch / Move / Pose / Groove”, she coaxes as if running the world’s most enjoyable exercise club. As a song about dancing solo, it tips a nod to the greatest of sad bangers, Robyn’s ‘Dancing on my Own’. The phrasing is charismatic and blessed with comedic timing, especially the claim that she is “the queen of exercising… pain.” With its keyboard melody and a guitar solo that takes melodic inspiration from a hybrid of Del Shannon’s ‘Runaway’ and The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’, it makes for a thrilling introduction to the album.
Another musical colossus gets referenced on track two. ‘Dear Patti’ reflects on a festival co-billing with Ms Smith, beginning with the nugget, “Patti, I didn’t get to hear you play / I was making sure my kids didn’t fall in the lake” and setting the scene for an exploration of gender power dynamics with the acknowledgement that there were only two women on stage that day, like on any day. With Dillon Watson’s guitar giving the song a country soul ballad air, it keeps the emotional engagement high.
The Alex Lukashevsky penned ‘Firefly on the Fourth of July’ has some great manipulated guitar playing from Watson, nuclear anxiety, brief sounds like jets taking off and another prime emotional vocal performance. Charlie McEvoy, who has performed with Elvis, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison, lends his harmonica to ‘The Clearing’ (written by Micah Blue Smaldone) helping conjure images of Remy on horseback with a straw between her teeth, surveying the carnage conveyed from the opening lines onward (“Braining their enemies / On the trunks of fallen trees.”)
Keeping with the theme of movement, ‘Walking Song’ starts less convincingly before a mid-song shift from the moment Remy returns to personal trainer mode and issues the instruction “walk walk walk” with the keyboards of Jo Schornikow and Tina Norwood ramping up the tension followed by a bluesy guitar solo. Ironically, the album’s centrepiece is the nearly twelve-minute ‘Bookends’, the complete opposite positionally of where you would expect to find such items. The song, like its immediate predecessor a co-write with Edwin de Goiej, pays tribute to Remy’s deceased friend and former Power Trip frontman, Riley Gale. Domo Donoho’s minimal drumming cuts through on the opening brooding soulful section that also features whirring organs and mournful harmonica. Seven minutes in, it transforms into a dexterous, disco funk number before ratcheting up the tempo in its final minute. It is often the small details that illustrate Remy’s unique songwriting approach, in this instance the appearance of “nolens volens” a Latin phrase for willing or unwilling.
‘Emptying the Jimador’ – other brands of liquor are available – recognises Remy’s problematic relationship with alcohol. To a slow, contemplative backing she reflects on a tequila-fuelled performance and after-party at Toronto’s Massey Hall. There is a mixture of regret and defiance, enjoying the way it makes her feel but wary of her indiscretions while acknowledging that she is not going to do “the sober war.” Continuing her ability to portray unexpected subjects, ‘Pay Streak’, which was written with Kim Biggs, looks at the Canadian gold rush. Her vocal is heartfelt and backed by strummed, countryish guitar, harmonica and piano to create an old-time frontiers land atmosphere.
Having started ‘Scratch It’ by auditioning for exercise videos, ‘No Fruit’ sees her launching her campaign to replace Monty Don on ‘Gardener’s World’. It uses a cultivation metaphor to speak of failed relationships (“if you don’t plant with the moon in mind / you will surely suffer shallow roots / when harvest time comes the picker will find / you’ve got no fruit.”) However, the bleak prognosis has a funky propulsion of Jack Lawrence’s bassline pushed along by Watson’s wah-wah guitar.
Throughout its nine tracks, ‘Scratch It’ is an impressive feat of highly idiosyncratic songwriting and distinctive vocals. After the diversion into glossy new technology of 2023’s slightly hit and miss ‘Bless This Mess’, its approach of live band recording with minimal overdubs is a success which brings the best out of this admirable collection of songs.
U.S. Girls: Scratch It – Out 20 June 2025 (4AD)
Girls – Bookends (Official Video)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
