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 & composited live action footage was fed into various Stable Diffusion deep learning models. Some images in the video have up to 6 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.
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.
Today, U.S. Girls announces an east coast North American tour kicking off 13 April in Montreal with stops including Brooklyn and wrapping with two hometown nights at Velvet Underground in Toronto. A full list of tour dates is below and ticket information found here.
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 the 4AD webstore and independent retailers (ex-US). 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: https://usgirls.ffm.to/
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