Hand Habits

Hand Habits is the project of Meg Duffy, a guitarist and songwriter from Amsterdam, New York, who uses gender-neutral pronouns.^[1] Duffy played drums from grade school, started guitar around seventeen, studied at a community college near Schenectady, and later moved to Los Angeles as a member of Kevin Morby's touring band.^[1]

Hand Habits began as a private songwriting outlet and grew into a full project with Duffy as its founder, main writer, and only permanent member.^[1] The debut, Wildly Idle (Humble Before the Void), arrived in 2017 on Woodsist, a self-produced record made at home between tours.^[1] The 2019 follow-up placeholder, released on Saddle Creek, marked a step into the studio and a more assured style of songwriting.^[2] Duffy has described that album as built from real stories about accountability and forgiveness.^[3]

Before and alongside Hand Habits, Duffy built a career as a collaborator, playing guitar in Kevin Morby's live band from 2015 to 2018 and contributing to records by The War on Drugs, Weyes Blood, William Tyler, Amber Arcades and Mega Bog, before joining Perfume Genius's band.^[1] Hand Habits itself dates back to the 2012 split release Small Shifts and two EPs in 2015, well before the debut album.^[1]

Duffy lost their mother when they were young, and revisiting that loss became central to the third Hand Habits album, Fun House (2021, Saddle Creek).^[4] In April 2020 they moved into a Los Angeles house with Sasami Ashworth and Kyle Thomas, and Sasami went on to produce the record, which was made at home during the pandemic.^[4] The album also takes up Duffy's transness and the categories society has placed on them.^[4] Its lead single, "Aquamarine," drew on letters from a cousin describing Duffy's mother.^[5]