Hand Habits and the Art of Disappearing

The L.A.-based songwriter on embracing the seasons of life and the evolution of identity.

By Hannah Harlacher

Photo by Bronwyn Ford

Published on August 21, 2025

Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy resists easy definitions — of their past, their identity, even their art. “I would take all day,” they laugh when asked about their childhood. “I don’t really know what kind of kid I was. You have to ask my family. I’m not a good judge of who I am pretty much ever.” That openness to uncertainty underscores their approach to music and life alike.

Lighthearted self-awareness runs throughout our conversation about the shifting nature of identity. For Duffy, music has always been a constant — a place for true connection without bounds.

Loss tragically shadowed their early years. After their mother passed away, Duffy moved between caretakers until the age of 12. Music became a steady anchor, a place for everything that felt too heavy to hold. “I didn’t really have a strong footing for my early years of life,” Duffy says. “Music became this consistent thing that was just mine and it was a place I could return to. It was also sort of an escape for me…I think music has been the most consistent spiritual practice in my life and the only way I can describe it is like disappearing.”

Photo: Jacob Boll

Before making the artist’s pilgrimage west, Duffy pursued jazz, collaborated widely, and eventually began shaping songs as Hand Habits. The project, like the artist, continues to shift with changing seasons and outside influences. “I’m really easily influenced and I used to be ashamed that it meant I didn’t know what I liked or who I was. But I actually think it’s good…because it makes for interesting choices.”

“I got into improvising really young,” they continue. “I got this delay pedal from a health food store that also sold instruments. I figured out if I turned the feedback all the way up, it would oscillate and I could play over it to make these looping, contained chaos soundscapes. I’d do that for hours in my room. It was addictive…and healing.”

That openness to influence is audible in the ambiguity of tone and genre within single tracks — a signature of Hand Habits. Recently inspired by Jerzy Kosinski’s 1971 novel Being There, Duffy prefers to think of growth like a garden: cyclical, natural, unpredictable. “Some seasons, trees don’t bear fruit, and some seasons, things don’t flower…some plants only flower every twenty years… I like that metaphor better for growth because it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers.”

Hand Habits itself feels seasonal, with touring and supporting other artists offering balance. “One couldn’t really exist without the other,” they say. “It’s good for me to take time away from being the centre of attention even in my own life…also to show up for myself and have the confidence to be in charge.”

Leadership hasn’t always come naturally, but Duffy thrives when working with collaborators who push them creatively. “People who aren’t afraid to share their opinions. If somebody has an idea, I want to hear it. I think it takes a lot of courage to share it sometimes. I love playing with Greg Uhlmann…he has such a distinct voice that I can hear immediately. I find that really inspiring because it creates space for me to have my voice in conversation with him. Tim, who plays drums on most of the record, is like that as well. Just by the way he hits the snare drum I can tell it’s him.”

That creative exchange feeds into what Duffy calls “the disappearing act,” a feeling of dissolving into the work — once a solitary pursuit, now amplified through collaboration. “It started as a very interior, independent journey,” they say. “Now I get to do that with other people, and it’s supercharged.”

In a world where queer, non-binary, and trans lives are scrutinized, politicized, or erased, visibility through music can be a lifeline — a place to exist without explanation. For Duffy, the most meaningful moments are those of ease. “The times it feels the best is when I don’t have to talk about it. It just is,” they say. “I don’t feel like a freak, or someone wants to kill me, or someone thinks I look like a boy or a girl. When I’m not thinking about what other people think about me, or when I’m not worried that someone’s having a violent thought, that’s when it feels like I’m just existing.”

Photo: Jacob Boll

Queer and trans identity is inseparable from their work. “Inherently my music is queer, non-binary, and trans because that’s my life experience. If I’m writing about a statue in Germany or my family, it’s all filtered through my lens and experiences.”

Duffy embraces the throughline between who they are now and the younger self still present within. “A lot of me is still that person. I try to keep that person with me too, because she was figuring it out and we love her. But for me it’s been important to choose a different path.”

Honouring those past selves is central to their new record, Blue Reminder. “Every record of mine has at least one or two instrumental tracks, that are my paying thanks to that version of myself,” they say. “I’m in touch with my family and it’s complicated, but I didn’t just sever all ties from that time in my life. I think that’s part of healing in general. It’s accepting those things. I think that’s captured in the title of Blue Reminder too, all of those things are part of me and this work that I’m making.”

Reflecting on the ongoing journey and the uncertainty ahead, Duffy says they’ve lived many lives since their debut, Wildly Idle (Humble Before The Void), in 2017. “Blue Reminder is a culmination of everything up to this point,” they explain. And what they hope listeners take away is simple: “That’s always what I want from music, a portal into my own experience…I want them to be able to project onto it.”

Like its title suggests, Blue Reminder gathers the seasons of life into a record that connects, dissolves, and transforms — unfolding like a garden in its own time. It’s a reminder to honour where we’ve been while embracing the mystery of what’s still to grow.