“Sasami really challenged me to just trust and explore these different parts of my identity that are definitely in me - these different kinds of music that I'm really influenced by and inspired by,” Duffy says. Once she came onboard, things changed: tempos sped up string parts and vocal harmonies were added Duffy was pulled, gently, out of their comfort zone. Fun House, they say, couldn’t have come together as it did without Sasami: before her involvement, it hewed closer to the ambient folk songwriting of placeholder. Sasami, who makes music under her own name and has a background in composition, was producing Thomas’ record at the time, and Duffy was inspired hearing them work together through the walls. But maybe not in the long run.”ĭuffy found natural creative partners in Sasami and engineer Kyle Thomas, who they were riding out the pandemic with in a house in LA. “I couldn't continue to not address the unease I think that I had been experiencing for a long time. Therapy was a good start in addressing their emotional discontent, as was a new, more honest, more trusting record. And I couldn't really understand where that anger was coming from,” they say. And I think I started getting really angry. “I had been touring for a very long time, and not addressing kind of, like bare minimum self care, and emotional responsibility. After years of touring and session work, both as Hand Habits and in the bands of Sylvan Esso and Kevin Morby, among others, Duffy was worn out. 17, at Sessions Music Hall Lounge $15 advance, $15, 21+.Although Duffy stresses that Fun House is decidedly not a pandemic record - and with its blushing synths and rangy solos and grandiose acapella breaks, it certainly doesn’t sound like one - they say that the seeds of the album began as the pandemic took off. Hand Habits performs with Gregory Uhlmann 8 pm Thursday, Feb. “I try and just follow it and let it come out.” “Most of the time when I sit down with lyrics - I’m not being mystical and I’m not being evasive - but I feel that I’m not in charge,” Duffy says. Determining what a song will be should first and foremost be the song itself. Some people are secure in their identity, while still others are always searching. Writing music, they say, “starts with a feeling, or a reaction to a feeling, that I’m trying to work out.” On Fun House, Duffy says, “I really wanted to take up more space as a songwriter,” pointing toward album track “Aquamarine,” which started out as a dark Leonard Cohen-style ballad but is now opened up with electronics and breakbeats. But in that minimalist approach to songwriting and performance, it’s easy to lose sight of what can exist in between. “As a guitar player I can shy away from overdoing it,” the musician continues. “I just like the way my body feels and my spirit feels when I play guitar. “I’ve had the same guitar since I started playing,” Duffy explains. Raised in New York state, Duffy studied guitar performance in college, but demurs when asked if they’re a “gearhead.”
#Hand habits mac#
“I wanted to be pushed creatively.”ĭuffy mentions Fleetwood Mac guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham as an influence the proficiency Buckingham shows with his instrument, but also his willingness to stay subservient to the song: tasteful, intentional, not afraid to take a solo but also in the moment.ĭuffy holds themself to those standards, too. On Fun House, Duffy adds, “I wanted to get outside of that fear a little bit,” and to be more ambitious with tempos, instrumentation and arrangements.
With the gently rhythmic Fun House track “Just to Hear You,” alongside Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius, Duffy repeats in a circling harmony, “I don’t need anything.” It’s a statement of purpose, with an edge of thrilling release.
It’s hard to break out of patterns that we’ve made for ourselves.” Over the phone from their home in California, Duffy tells Eugene Weekly, “I spent so much of my life identifying as a guitar player, not as a songwriter. Duffy now finds joy in their own songwriting, which fits nicely alongside recent classic heartland rock updates from bands like Big Thief and the immaculately understated quality of groups like Fleetwood Mac in its ’70s heyday. 17 at Sessions Music Hall Lounge, where they supported Andy Shauf in the main hall in September.Īs a guitarist, Duffy has toured, performed and collaborated with some of today’s most intriguing indie musicians, such as Weyes Blood, The War on Drugs, Kevin Morby and Perfume Genius. The songwriter and guitarist’s third studio album is out now on Saddle Creek Records.
#Hand habits free#
When songwriter and guitarist Meg Duffy, who performs as Hand Habits, recorded their latest full-length album, Fun House, Duffy wanted to break free from the narratives we all tell ourselves about our own lives, and specifically to reject the orthodoxy of what they thought they could do as a musician.
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