While forging a name through session appearances and road work as a guitarist alongside various singer-songwriters such as Kevin Morby, Meg Duffy simultaneously nurtured Hand Habits as an outlet for personal material. Initially conceived as a solitary home-recording project, its atmospheric and finely layered guitar pieces first appeared on a split EP during 2014. By the time the second full-length arrived in 2019 under the title Placeholder, Hand Habits had grown into a proper band; two years afterward, the SASAMI-produced Fun House merged Duffy’s introspective folk tendencies with synthesizer textures and dance-rock rhythms.
A Los Angeles resident originally from upstate New York, Duffy issued the first Hand Habits material as the split EP Small Shifts/Living with Abbreviation alongside the band Peg on Eschatone Records in early 2014. Over the ensuing years, several months were spent supporting West Coast songwriters Kevin Morby and Mega Bog (Erin Birgy) on tour. Guitar contributions also extended to 2016 releases by Weyes Blood and Amber Arcades. Later that same year, Woodsist—the label home to Morby, Little Wings, and Real Estate, among others—signed Hand Habits, resulting in the self-produced debut Wildly Idle (Humble Before the Void) appearing early in 2017. Additional 2017 activity included slide-guitar parts on the War on Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding and multiple instrumental performances on Morby’s City Music.
Treating the project explicitly as a collective rather than a solo endeavor, Hand Habits delivered a richer yet still close-knit sound on Placeholder, released via Saddle Creek Records in 2019. That year’s other credits encompassed electric-guitar work on William Tyler’s Goes West, an album also featuring Bill Frisell. Following a 2020 collaboration with Jess Williamson, the Dirt EP surfaced in February 2021. In the interim, guitar duties continued on albums by Morby, Vagabon, and Sylvan Esso, among additional artists.
Hand Habits’ third album, Fun House, appeared on Saddle Creek before the close of 2021. Sasami Ashworth, recording as SASAMI, served as producer while Kyle Thomas of King Tuff handled engineering, introducing synthesizers, strings, and dance beats into the arrangements.
