Today sees Toronto-based producer, film composer, and author Meg Remy announce a new U.S. Girls album Scratch It (out 20th June) with the release of an epic 12-minute lead single, ‘Bookends’. The Illinois-raised musician also shared details of a summer North American tour to coincide.
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Co-written with Edwin de Goeji, ‘Bookends’ is the heart of Scratch It. The sprawling ballad pays tribute to Remy’s late friend and former Power Trip frontman Riley Gale, through the lens of Remy’s reading of John Carey’s Eyewitness To History, a historical collection of 300+ eyewitness accounts of great world events spanning twenty-four centuries. In consuming these first-hand accounts of human history, she began to ponder the thought, “there is not a hierarchy to suffering, and death is the great equalizer.”
+ Stream ‘Bookends’ on the platform of your choice here +
‘Bookends’ is accompanied by a cinematic short directed by Caity Arthur. They explain, “The video is ultimately about death and absolution — how death is one of the only certain things in life; the ‘great equalizer,’ nolens volens. However, it also subverts the traditional narrative of death as a despairing void, rather, portraying it as a euphoric transitory experience or new beginning through a hallucinatory ensemble cast, a 1960s pop-star performance, and sleight of hand magic. As the video progresses, the TV channels alternate through these scenes as Meg’s lyrics evoke death in its various forms.”
When an artist follows her instinct, rather than money or trends, she can find inspiration anywhere. When Remy was asked to play a festival in Hot Springs, Arkansas — over one thousand miles away from her Toronto home — it was instinct that led her to enlist guitarist friend Dillon Watson (D. Watusi, Savoy Motel, Jack Name) to assemble a one-time Nashville-based band for the occasion. The performance went so well that she decided to ride that energy right back to where the impromptu band had initially rehearsed, in Music City itself, kickstarting the journey toward Scratch It.
In just ten days, Remy and the band — Watson on guitar, Jack Lawrence (The Dead Weather, The Raconteurs, Loretta Lynn) on bass, Domo Donoho on drums, and both Jo Schornikow and Tina Norwood on keys, as well as harmonica legend Charlie McCoy (Elvis, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison) — recorded Scratch It live off the floor with minimal overdubs, mixed to tape. Closeness and ease emanate from this core band with Remy’s singular voice sparkling on top of every tune, the most relaxed it has ever been.
Scratch It weaves together country, gospel, garage rock, soul, disco, folk balladry, and more, with Remy’s masterful songwriting threaded throughout. Her choice to discard the computer-based production of previous albums in favor of two-inch tape serves the songs well, introducing an element of sonic shapeshifting expected from an artist nearly twenty years into making records. If instinct was an instrument, Remy would be a virtuoso. Scratch It and see.
U.S. Girls – Scratch It
4AD0807
1. Like James Said
2. Dear Patti
3. Firefly on the 4th of July
4. The Clearing
5. Walking Song
6. Bookends
7. Emptying the Jimador
8. Pay Streak
9. No Fruit
Meg Remy will take her Nashville U.S. Girls band on tour this Summer, with more dates to be added — the routing is listed below, and ticket information can be found here. In addition, Remy has also just announced a special pop-up show at Soft Junk in Nashville next week, on Wednesday 14th May, where she will be performing the new album for the first time with the live band – tickets are extremely limited and available here.
May
14th – Soft Junk, Nashville TN, US
June
21st – Grey Eagle, Asheville NC, US
22nd – The Atlantis, Washington DC, US
23rd – Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia PA, US
25th – Bowery Ballroom, New York NY, US
26th – The Rockwell, Somerville MA, US
28th – Grog Shop, Cleveland OH, US
29th – Lincoln Hall, Chicago IL, US
September
9th – Lodge Room, Los Angeles CA, US
11th – Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco CA, US
Originally from Illinois, Meg Remy is established as one of the most acclaimed songwriters to emerge from Toronto’s eclectic underground music scene where she currently lives. As the creative force behind the musical entity U.S. Girls, her celebrated decades-long discography includes three Polaris Prize shortlisted and Juno-nominated albums on 4AD: Half Free (2015), In A Poem Unlimited (2018), Heavy Light (2020), as well as Bless This Mess (2023) and live compilation Lives (2023). Remy has exhibited collage work and directed several music videos and other video art works including her short film Woman’s Advocate (2014). She published her first book, a memoir called Begin By Telling (2021) and is working on a follow-up. Recently, Remy has turned film composer, scoring Grace Glowicki’s horror comedy Dead Lover, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Her producer credits include Bria Salmena’s Big Dog (2025, Sub Pop). As a platform and persona, U.S. Girls operates on a uniquely out-of-time wavelength, alternately wronged and rueful, classic but contemporary, bruised vignettes of poetic Americana through a feminist lens.