Mixtape: U.S. Girls

Megan Remy pieces together something special for ClashMusic...

In 2008 Megan Remy started her solo project U.S. Girls releasing cassingles, 7” E.P.’s and an L.P. Support from Britt Brown of Not Not Fun and a two date UK tour ensued.

Live shows see Meg singing mangled, reverb heavy vocals over prerecorded tape loops layered with white noise. the songs would include covers such as Bruce Springsteen’s Prove It All Night but it’s her own eerie R&B compositions that place her at the vanguard of pop music.

“I just wanted to make music at home, and then to share it. To experiment…really just have fun. I just wanted a challenge I’ve never done,” she says in the least-pretentious, arrogant-free tone imaginable.

“I wanna attempt to keep pushing myself into a new form of music. I want to look towards the future of music because everything made now is a reproduction. I wanna keep experimenting, I don’t want to get bored.”

At the tail end of last year Meg released ‘U.S. Girls On KRAAK’ (referencing the Belgian label, KRAAK, who released it). This time including a revision of Brandy & Monica’s The Boy Is Mine – a dark, bastardised interpretation engulfed in screeching and rotting industrialism.

“It’s in my blood. It’s the music that I grew up with and that grabbed me first. My love affair with it is probably not that good because it’s a love affair with the past.” Although conscious of the Retromania debate currently encircling pop ideology, thankfully it is her own composition, Island Song, that tops the record.

U.S. Girls is often associated with early Not Not Fun releases: Inca Ore, LA Vampires, Pocahaunted, and Peaking Lights, often crop up in the same conversations. Regrettably Pocahaunted is no more, Peaking Lights has moved away from the sound that links them, LA Vampires is low on Amanda Brown’s to do list, and Inca Ore’s similarity extends little beyond the aesthetic outlines.

Here's a mix Meg made for us. 

Listen to it now… Grab it HERE.

Right click, 'Save As…'

I FELT LIKE SMASHING MY FACE IN A CLEAR GLASS WINDOW – YOKO ONO
TREAT HER LIKE A LADY – CORNELIUS BROTHERS AND SISTER ROSE
IT'S COLD OUTSIDE – VICTOR DIMISICH BAND
MARIE PROVOST – NICK LOWE
THE WORST GIRL IN THIS TOWN – ROBIN GIBB
BIEN, GRACIAS – BEAR BONES, LAY LOW
BLACK & BLUES – EARL MANKEY
FLIPSIDE – TIMELESS REALITY
CALM & COLLECTED – FIVER
BODY'S IN TROUBLE – MARY MARGARET O'HARA
I CAME TO VISIT BUT DECIDED TO STAY – ARMAND SCHAUBROECK
PATCHES – CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Words by Samuel Breen

-
Join the Clash mailing list for up to the minute music, fashion and film news.