Meg Duffy is known for a particular kind of soft melodicism, crafting their last two albums with the prowess of an adept multi-instrumentalist, and fine-tuning their work down to their most minimalist kernels. Duffy’s Hand Habits moniker has always served a particularly personal role, giving them a chance to emerge from behind the countless touring bands or albums credits they’re featured in, always recorded on tour or on short breaks in their schedule. While recording Fun House, however, Duffy enlisted roommate Sasami Ashworth for production duties, a decision that allowed their proximity and familiarity to pull the project into an entirely new direction. Sasami encouraged Duffy to embellish the tracks, laying on more instrumentation and giving the work a more confident and brighter tone. That tone stands in contrast with the stifled and traumatic place those tracks came from, and even at its mildest moments, Duffy asserts themself with an energetic catharsis.
Duffy didn’t intend to make an “ambitious” album, nor did they really intend to make it introspective. When COVID-19 ended Duffy’s seemingly nonstop touring schedule, they found themself, like many musicians, forced into isolated reflection. That forced contemplation allowed Duffy to come to terms with themself, realizing their trans identity and attempting to push themself outside of their comfort zone. The result feels like a breakthrough, an album that owes itself to individuality and exploration, the kind of album that could easily be self-titled. That tone lands Fun House in the same camp as Perfume Genius, an artist whose identity courses through each of his albums even at their most stylistically different. In fact, Mike Hadreas contributes his vocals on “Just to Hear You” and “No Difference”, providing a counterbalance to Duffy’s hushed delivery and harmonizing their voices to better suit the instrumentation.
Both Hadreas and Sasami loom large over Fun House, but like the title, they serve only to distort and transform the album into something different. When Duffy began writing songs for their new album, they were soft, acoustic demos, the kind of music that necessitated understanding and analysis. But much like the changes in their own life, these songs grew into themself, revealing the importance of the song’s gestation, Duffy’s reckoning with their identity, and the strength of the seeds themselves.
