U.S. Girls' Beautiful 'Mess'

For her latest art-pop triumph, Meg Remy embraced life's big mysteries like never before

- JON BLISTEIN

The breast pump was waiting for Meg Remy at her Toronto home when she returned from the hospital with her twins. A friend had given it to her, even though Remy wasn't initially sure if she'd use the machine. But with two newborns to feed, she charged it up, flipped the switch - and out came a guttural womp.

"The minute I heard it, I was like, 'What is this fucking sound?" says Remy, 37, bandleader and creative force behind the always-inventive, always-evolving pop outfit U.S. Girls. She recorded the pump's singular pulse and sampled it for "Pump," the final song on U.S. Girls' new album, Bless This Mess. The song's verses are basically a "straight-up reportage of my experience in the hospital," as Remy recounts a conversation with a night nurse; a second-half vamp distills the thoughts that ran through her head as she spent hours hooked to the pump. "Bodies, birth, death, machines," she repeats, a riddle of human connectivity.

"That would really be my only time alone, pumping milk multiple times a day," Remy says. "I'd sit and think, 'What the fuck am I doing right now? Why does it seem that we all need machines to teach us how to do something we inherently know how to do?"