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Hand Habits Photo by Jacob Boll 2025 double single

Hand Habits shares two new singles, "Jasmine Blossoms" and "Dead Rat"

08 July 2025, 10:53 | Written by Tyler Damara Kelly

Hand Habits, the project of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Meg Duffy, has released a pair of new singles – "Jasmine Blossoms" and "Dead Rat" – from their forthcoming album, Blue Reminder.

“This song really conjures for me the room and the time that I wrote it in—I was living in Mount Washington in LA, which is just such a beautiful, lush neighbourhood. And there were (and are) these sort of unthinkable contradictions, between the beauty of the flowers and the trees and the birds around me, and then just being blasted with so much horrifying information and footage of war, death, and greed on the news and social media,” Duffy says speaking of "Jasmine Blossoms", released alongside a video by frequent collaborator Otium.

“This song is definitely not an answer to how to integrate those things, but I just wanted to try to sort of depict that experience, that one reality doesn’t negate the other. I come from a family where we don't typically talk about the tragic or dysfunctional, which I think partly led to me being a songwriter who talks about pain and grief a lot, and at the same time, to being a person who tries to cultivate some joy, while everything falls apart.”

“There was an actual dead rat rotting in my wall. It was disgusting and I was living with the smell and couldn't get to it, so there was truly nothing I could do but wait it out,” Duffy explains of "Dead Rat".

“It just became this metaphor for me on a number of levels: There are definitely things that I’ve done or been through that a part of me would rather put behind the wall and never think about again… but that’s not the way the psyche or healing works, and things will find their way out, whether it's through a wretched smell or through acceptance or an open window, or all three."

Blue Reminder, will be released on 22 August via Fat Possum Records.

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