SHINEA LIGHTALLOW U.S. GIRLS TOREINTRODUCE HERSELFIf Heavy Light, the eighth and latest studio album byU.S. Girls, had a thesis, it would be that you can’t moveforward without first looking behind. The 13-track LP byMeg Remy’s acclaimed experimental post-pop projectplays like a shifting gaze between the person Remywas on past records, and who she’s evolved into on hernewest release.The nostalgia infused in the sounds and messages ofeach track is refreshing. More often than not, the swiftemergence of adulthood sweeps in before you even realizethat your adolescence has been left behind. Instead, HeavyLight chronicles Meg Remy taking the time to share a fondgoodbye with earlier iterations of herself, all while steppinginto a new era of her artistry.“A lot of the record is about looking back,” Remy explainsat a Bloor West coffee shop on a chilly February afternoonin Toronto. “People always say, ‘If I could go back, I woulddo this,’ or ‘if I knew what I know now, here’s what I woulddo.’ I don’t think that’s really true.” While peeking frombeneath her shaggy, flaxen bangs, she speaks softly, butwith comfortable conviction.But despite acknowledging that you can’t go back, shespends much of her new album looking back.If Remy’s last project, In a Poem Unlimited (2018), was hermeditation on anger, then Heavy Light is her reckoning withthe past–before her abbreviation and her alias were born.Before she was U.S. Girls, she was Meg Remy, andbefore Meg Remy, she was Meghan Ann Uremovich. “Icome from a really specific (background),” she says ofher upbringing. “I’m American and I’m white. I was raisedCatholic and went to private school.” Having recognizedthat elements of her identity afford certain privileges, herstorytelling has changed. “I can’t speak to anybody else’sexperience. All I can do is present mine and listen whenothers present theirs.”In 2011, Artforum’s Andrew Hultkran concluded thatRemy was “a woman who clearly spends a lot of time in herapartment with the shades drawn.” But a decade later, thisassertion is less true than ever. “I wouldn’t have finished therecord if I was alone,” Remy admits. During our chat Remyexplained that she chose to record the album live with a fullband and backing vocalists. She even tapped her husband,musician Max Turnbull, to do the mixing and mastering.The collaborative spirit on Heavy Light is a true sign ofhow Remy’s approach to her craft has shifted. “To makesomething with 15 amazing people, to hear what they wantand incorporate it into my thing so that it’s not just aboutme, is so different from being alone in a bedroom.” Thoughher creative process still “always starts there,” over adecade into her career as a solo artist she’s comfortableletting other people in. “Now I can turn away from [thebedroom], or let other people be reflected in there.”Other voices are reflected on the album too — literally.Tracks on Heavy Light are woven together by interludesthat Remy likens to sonic collages, where she and hercollaborators answer deeply personal questions. Betweentracks, they serve as palette cleansers, where Remy’spersonal narrative is interjected by voices sharing advicethat they would give to their teenage selves, the mosthurtful thing that they have been told, and the colour oftheir childhood bedrooms.The revelations on the interludes and the tracks wereintentionally cathartic. The writing and recording of HeavyLight aligned with Remy’s introduction to somatic therapy,which she describes as “a body-based therapy that is allabout clearing the nervous system of trauma.”Her eyes widen as she explains that “in nature when ananimal gets scared, they freeze, flee or fight. Once they’resafe, they shake and shimmy to get the tail ends of thattraumatic energy out of their system,” In contrast, Remysays that “human beings store it.” On Heavy Light, we hearthe release. “The kind of therapy that I was doing opensyou up to pull that out. It helps you so that you don’t storethings going forward.”One of the things she held onto was “Red Ford Radio,”one of Remy’s hallmark singles. To close the album, Remychose to re-record a reprise of the song and, ironically, it’sone of the most vivid markers of her metamorphosis.“My voice has changed,” she reflects. “I have controlover my voice but I don’t have control over the emotion. It’sabout figuring out how to sing these songs without cryingbut knowing that it’s ok if I do cry.”In spite of this, ending her new album with a rerecordingof an early hit was Remy challenging herself. “After workingon this project for 13 years, to go back to these songs thatI wrote and see if they’re sturdy or not; to see if I relate tothem. I wrote that song when I was 22 and I’m 34 now. Do Istill relate to it? Can I stand behind it?” She can.While the message is the same, her relationship to thatsong has grown. “I think I was hiding behind that songthen,” she says. “Now I’m saying, ‘No. This is me.’” STARBy SUMIKO WILSON10 BEATROUTE MARCH 2020
JEFF BIERKMARCH 2020 BEATROUTE 11
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