Meg Duffy could not stop thinking about the smell of the dead rat. Los Angeles had been good to the guitarist since they moved west from Albany, N.Y., in 2015. Duffy had become an in-demand touring and session guitarist for the likes of Perfume Genius, the War on Drugs and Weyes Blood, known for powerful but elegant riffs and a painterly approach to texture. Duffy had also released several records as Hand Habits, a band whose charged folk-rock and warped chamber-pop functioned like a steam valve of frustrations.
But then, late in 2023, came the smell. Duffy had long heard rodents scurrying behind the dirty white walls of the shared old Los Angeles craftsman. Soon after the sound stopped, a noxious odor started seeping in; whenever Duffy opened a window, mosquitoes flooded the room. “Everything’s cool,” Duffy told themselves, a mantra so crucial to their tumultuous childhood that it’s tattooed on their left arm.
At last, Duffy broke. Four years into hormone replacement therapy, Duffy had a contentious phone call with their brother about being trans. Duffy’s new partner — a psychiatrist who prefers not to be named for patient privacy — arrived and offered advice: It was OK to be angry, she told Duffy. And then she opened a window, mosquitoes be damned.
“It was one of the first moments in my life, after being with so many people, where it felt like I was learning to trust,” Duffy said, smiling behind a thin mustache during a video interview from the house the couple soon began sharing. “The joke is it took a psychiatrist to make me feel safe in a relationship.”
Within weeks, Duffy wrote “Dead Rat,” an unexpectedly sublime love song where they ask for and get help. It’s an exquisite anchor of “Blue Reminder,” out Friday, a tender and endearing album that feels like a culmination of a decade of intense musical practice and work. Where past albums have explored the fallouts of toxic relationships — cheating, being the person someone cheats with, generally desiring the unattainable — Duffy, 35, has now documented a lasting romance in real time.
The album also stems from Duffy’s self-acceptance as nonbinary; changes in their voice from testosterone treatment allowed them to write and sing songs that feel more connected to their body as their register lowered.
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