Du Blonde has shared a new single, Blame, from their forthcoming follow-up to 2021's brilliant Homecoming album.
“I’ve been sitting on this song for a long time while making this record and I can barely believe the time’s finally come for it’s release,” the 34-year-old musician (aka Beth Jeans Houghton) posted recently on Instagram. “This one’s for anyone who has ever been gaslit to the point of breaking.”
“This is officially a new era for me,” they added in a new Instagram post yesterday. “I wrote this track for anyone who has ever been gaslit, and for those who are still trying to climb back out of the pit of uncertainty that gaslighting leaves you in.”
The chorus of the song runs:
“You swept me away like a hurricane
Nothing like a hard-on to hide my pain
I’ve been feeling like I’m something that you created
So next time you wanna find someone to blame
You reach in to your mouth and you find my name
Just remember that I’m something that you created”
Listen to Blame, written, performed, engineered and produced by Du Blonde, below:
Du Blonde says that they have been sitting on Blame for two years. This, however, is as nothing compared to the 10 years she kept 2023 single Pelican Canyon in her vaults. That song, a collaboration with Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands, was recorded in 2013 in a haunted Los Angeles studio, the singer said last year.
Speaking about the single, released in May last year, Du Blonde said: “Pelican Canyon is a song that’s really close to my heart. It’s a time capsule of one of many trips I took in my early twenties, when the world was still new to me and I was adventurous enough to drive out into the desert with a total stranger. It encompasses a feeling and experience I’ve been looking to recreate ever since.”
This May, Du Blonde told subscribers to their Patreon that their new record is “all but finished.”
“It feels weird to be able to say that and believe it after so many months (and years) of replying ‘soon!’ when people ask about its status," they stated. “Writing for this record began immediately after Homecoming was finished. Or more, the writing was a continuation of the writing from that time. This record has already been so many things, entirely different songs and genres, all morphing and battling one another for space before it became what it is today. There have been at least 4 or 5 entirely different albums that this record almost became.
“There were many times in the process that I became frustrated with ‘how long it was taking’ due to multiple factors including illness, money, self confidence and generally not having any clear and concise view of what I wanted the album to be. But I also tried to remind myself along the way that exactly the same thing happened with Homecoming.”