In Katherine Anne Porter's Ship of Fools, the author concedes that "the past is never where you think you left it" — both a comment on our failure to see the insidious patterns of history, and a recognition of yesterday's slippery nature, of its knack for hiding and revealing itself in unexpected ways.
Heavy Light, the remarkable new record from Meg Remy's U.S. Girls project, is a scavenger hunt for these elusive pasts — music devoted to reflection and retrospection. Recorded live on the floor at Montreal's Hotel2Tango, the record is a communal exultation built from piano, percussion and waves of human voice. It feels like the culmination of Remy's work to date, music in constant conversation with itself — the sum greater than its parts, and the parts greater than what's come before. It's also largely devoid of the characters that once defined Remy's music; never before have her narratives felt so personal and resonant.
The shimmering "IOU" is both enormous and minute, finding clarity in tracing the contours of lineage: "You shower with your silver on / You brush your hair with a round brush you keep in your bag / And now I do the same." Crucially, Remy's essential principles still shade these intimate stories — as in life, politics seep in through the walls. The money woes of "4 American Dollars" and "Overtime"; the environmental panic of "The Quiver to the Bomb"; and the feminist politic of "State House (It's a Man's World)" break through the haze of memory.
The record's crown jewel — perhaps Remy's greatest achievement to date — is the brief, luminous "Woodstock '99." Interpolating Jimmy Webb's timeless "MacArthur Park," it's a parallel story of two friends, a glittering paean for lost possibility. That it centers on Woodstock's most environmentally damaging and sexually violent year is U.S. Girls encapsulated — there are sharp edges to even the softest ballad.
Heavy Light ends with "Red Ford Radio," arguably the quintessential U.S. Girls song. More than a decade on from its original recording, it remains as primal as ever — drums and voice marching toward some unknown end — though it now speaks to a more elemental fear of a changing planet. It's a claustrophobic cap to a record so imbued with space and light — a reminder that, left unexamined, the mistakes of yesterday are the mistakes of today; that looking back and moving forward are one and the same. That the past is never where you think you left it.
(Royal Mountain Records)Heavy Light, the remarkable new record from Meg Remy's U.S. Girls project, is a scavenger hunt for these elusive pasts — music devoted to reflection and retrospection. Recorded live on the floor at Montreal's Hotel2Tango, the record is a communal exultation built from piano, percussion and waves of human voice. It feels like the culmination of Remy's work to date, music in constant conversation with itself — the sum greater than its parts, and the parts greater than what's come before. It's also largely devoid of the characters that once defined Remy's music; never before have her narratives felt so personal and resonant.
The shimmering "IOU" is both enormous and minute, finding clarity in tracing the contours of lineage: "You shower with your silver on / You brush your hair with a round brush you keep in your bag / And now I do the same." Crucially, Remy's essential principles still shade these intimate stories — as in life, politics seep in through the walls. The money woes of "4 American Dollars" and "Overtime"; the environmental panic of "The Quiver to the Bomb"; and the feminist politic of "State House (It's a Man's World)" break through the haze of memory.
The record's crown jewel — perhaps Remy's greatest achievement to date — is the brief, luminous "Woodstock '99." Interpolating Jimmy Webb's timeless "MacArthur Park," it's a parallel story of two friends, a glittering paean for lost possibility. That it centers on Woodstock's most environmentally damaging and sexually violent year is U.S. Girls encapsulated — there are sharp edges to even the softest ballad.
Heavy Light ends with "Red Ford Radio," arguably the quintessential U.S. Girls song. More than a decade on from its original recording, it remains as primal as ever — drums and voice marching toward some unknown end — though it now speaks to a more elemental fear of a changing planet. It's a claustrophobic cap to a record so imbued with space and light — a reminder that, left unexamined, the mistakes of yesterday are the mistakes of today; that looking back and moving forward are one and the same. That the past is never where you think you left it.
