We're honored to premiere the video for the achingly beautiful and poignant new single from Meg Duffy, aka Hand Habits, taken from their stellar forthcoming LP placeholder, coming soon on Saddle Creek. Directed + edited by Vanessa Haddad, the vid stars Meg as a vampire who ponders the painfully real possibility that we're all cursed with certain deep-seated familial patterns that we'll never be able to shake.

Meg has never had a problem flooring us with devastating lyrical turns of phrase (the opening line from Hand Habits' debut LP immediately comes to mind), and the profoundly articulated and relatable conceit at the center of "can't calm down" -- "what if I can’t calm down and i don’t have that in my bloodline?" -- is a heartbreaking reflection on what Meg refers to as "ancestral damage":

"this song took the longest lyrically for me to finish. i started it about 3 years ago and kept it in progress throughout different cycles of feeling. 'ancestral damage' and learned behaviors and conditioning to react/hold and place certain emotions are patterns i'm interested in taking part and understanding better. what can one do with rage? with pain? with sadness? and is it is possible to learn how to wipe away completely the knee jerk reactions to situations that are buried deep in one's dna? and the role models that taught us how to behave, whether directly or residually...are they the ones who should be held responsible or is memory partially to blame?"

placeholder is out March 1st.