Scratch It

The real surprise about the historically artier Meg Remy embracing the ordinary comforts of folk, country, gospel, and soul is how right it sounds, a *Dusty in Memphis* or early Aretha album for listeners cautiously merging the life of the mind with the achingly normal ups and downs of regular adulthood. Remy has said it has at least something to do with her own growth as a person: Nearing 40 and a mother of two, the high-concept stuff just doesn’t hit the way it used to. Still, to familiar forms she brings her funky, left-field mind: the deep-soul surrealism of “Walking Song” (“You had boots on/I had bare feet/It was a natural conspiracy”), the love-letter-as-feminist-critique of “Dear Patti,” the way she uses her bluesy lament (“Emptying the Jimador”) to offer metaphors about being a shoplifter amid the gifts of language. Over a band she reportedly directed to play like they were from Tennessee, she sings her weird heart out, never dull, just growing up.

On her most immediate and accessible album yet, Meg Remy trades the ’80s electro-funk of Bless This Mess for ’60s country tinged with Nashville and Vegas, embracing all her contradictions with gusto.

Listen to any of Meg Remy’s U.S. Girls records from the past decade and you’ll discover a mind bursting – overflowing, almost – with ideas and

Scratch It by U.S. Girls album review by Adam Fink for Northern Transmissions. The artist's LP drops on June 20th via 4AD/Royal Mountain