U.S. Girls plays off impulses, raw emotion on Go Grey

If 2008 was the year for lo-fi and 2009 was the year for thoughtful experimentation (not necessarily so, but), perhaps 2010 will be the year for thoughtful lo-fi experimentation. Perhaps. Or perhaps it will just be the year that U.S. Girls came onto the scene with a wonderfully lo-fi experimental album that fuses basic tribal elements with haunting synth and her own raw emotions. (Think a more intense and less-cutesy tUnE-YaRdS.)

Go Grey is the second full-length release by Megan Remy, who under the moniker U.S. Girls makes very impulsive-driven songs that typically use only one or very few sounds and might seem just as appropriate in a modern art museum as in your iTunes. Like I said, this is experimental stuff, and I don’t mean “Lady Gaga wore Kermit the Frog heads” experimental. Remy seems to play off her emotions rather than long, overwrought song writing, so the songs are less “traditional” and more “something else entirely.”

Hallucinogenic images would seem all too fitting for Go Grey, because the thing is practically an acid trip and a half. That’s not to say there isn’t any diversity in the music. “Red For Radio,” is as wonderfully stripped down as you can get and showcases a rare moment in which we can understand what Remy is saying (please! More! I bet your lyrics are wonderful!). But opening track “Turnaround Time” plays more like a haunted, futuristic tribal anthem, which seems to be her specialty. Further down the track list is “I Don’t Have a Mind Of My Own,” which sounds a lot like a cover of some 70s punk song. The girl does it all, what can I say?

After nine songs and less than 30 minutes, Go Grey is a beautiful album if you enjoy both: A. Very lo-fi and B. People making music that doesn’t sound like what you traditionally consider “music.” If you’re not down with either one of those counts, you might have trouble with U.S. Girls, but I’m not so sure that Megan Remy gives a shit about that.

U.S. Girls – “Red Ford Radio” [MP3]

U.S. Girls – “Turnaround Time” [MP3]

Buy Go Grey at Siltbreeze

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