“There’s so much mystery and everything’s an improvisation until it’s not,” they add. It’s a safe space.” yes/and is the other side of Duffy’s creative spectrum: formless and identity-less, shifting gears from their tonal storytelling in Hand Habits. “I’m trying to keep it more sacred and about exploration and music and creativity.
“I tried to keep my face and my name as unattached to it as possible,” Duffy says. At the end of July, they released yes/and, an instrumental effort done alongside electronic virtuoso Joel Ford, intentionally without much promotion. The last two months have been busy for Duffy’s collaborative pursuits, but with the creativity focused on their own work rather than anyone else’s. “Not a lot of people know I play on and I get to hear it and be like, ‘That’s me!’” “I really like collaboration because I get to be of service and help somebody figure out what it is they’re hearing and make that happen and just provide while being in the background and enjoy it,” Duffy says. Once they catalogued a prolific CV of guest spots on other people’s work and toured relentlessly, Duffy took the cult following built up from their debut and used it to put together a sophomore effort, placeholder, at Bon Iver’s studio in Wisconsin.ĭespite being a masterclass composer in their own right, so much so that they are teaching an online class on songwriting this fall for School of Song, Duffy relishes the muted limelight that comes with stepping into someone else’s world and being a part of their vision. And even before all of that, Duffy was playing guitar in Kevin Morby’s band and Sylvan Esso after graduating from the Albany, New York DIY scene. Between those two features sits their debut as Hand Habits, Wildly Idle (Humble Before the Void), an evocative record pawing at a deep, vulnerable reverence not fully realized yet. Duffy: one of everyone’s favorite rock stars, and it seemed like not one soul fleeing into the streets had even the slightest clue of it.ĭuffy’s opening slide guitar on The War on Drugs’ “Holding On,” unfurling and wondrous, like a second vocalist on the track, was a defining musical moment in 2017, arriving on the heels of a heavenly solo on Weyes Blood’s “Seven Words” the year prior, in which their contribution helped encapsulate Natalie Mering’s haunting vocal performance. But when those folks wandered out into the damp, hillside suburb of Millvale, they did so unaware of their own regretful ignorance towards Duffy during a short, but urgent and palpable set.
It paralleled the immediate kinship you feel when listening to one of their records all the way through, and opened the door for a friendship that extends into the present day. I gushed to Duffy about “pacify” and exchanged hugs with the band. When I caught them at their merch table after the gig, I handed off the bottle of T as a swarm of folks passed up on stopping by and meeting Hand Habits in favor of snagging a flimsy card-stock tour poster with Whitney’s name and tour itinerary emblazoned on the front. But I was anxious about the whole transaction, wanting to make sure I crossed paths with Duffy before the hurricane of the crowd blocked the exit en masse after Whitney’s set. Duffy’s performance focused on cuts from placeholder-their newest Hand Habits record, which had come out the previous spring-but the crowd talked through their entire slot, missing the gentleness in that night’s rendition of “pacify.” Of course, Duffy and company hustled through their half-hour set, leaving an opportunity for me to find them before night’s end. You’ll find the same energy in the air at any opening act’s set in America, but there’s a certain nihilism surrounding them at Midwest and Northern Appalachia shows. I was familiar with Duffy’s work, though not as seriously at the time, only by way of “yr heart ” and “Sun Beholds Me,” two endearing, unforgettable strokes of indie balladry. Admittedly, I’d come to the show to see Whitney’s set. So I hid a bottle in my back jeans pocket, since the venue’s website didn’t indicate whether HRT gel was contraband or not, and slipped through security with it tucked away. I’d just switched to T injections myself and had an overstock of gel just sitting in a cabinet at home. Before the gig, they’d tweeted about needing some spare testosterone for the rest of their time on tour. Smalls Theater-in Millvale, Pennsylvania, an Allegheny County borough just a stone’s throw from Pittsburgh-when they opened for Whitney under the moniker of their solo project, Hand Habits. “Still nervous, but a little less.” I haven’t seen Duffy in almost two years, not since their show at Mr. “I’m so much less nervous now,” they say. When former upstate New Yorker and current Californian Meg Duffy joins our Zoom call, they’re surprised it’s me on camera.
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