FEATURE: Spotlight: Du Blonde — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Du Blonde

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THIS feature is being written…

on 27th March. In six days, the new album from Du Blonde, Homecoming, arrives. Whilst I am not publishing this feature for a few more days, there are no reviews available at the time that I can bring in for the album – though I will provide a link where you can buy the album. Du Blonde is an artist that I really like and have been following for a little bit. Beth Jeans Houghton (a.k.a. Du Blonde) is a Newcastle upon Tyne-born multi-disciplinary musician, composer, artist, animator and video director. I really love her work and the fact that she has her own sense of style and this multi-discipline approach. A fantastic artist, creator and visionary, I think that Du Blonde is going to be a huge star of the future. If you have not bought Homecoming then go and order a copy and experience a tremendous artist:

“Du Blonde is back with new album Homecoming and with it, her own record label, clothing brand and all-round art house Daemon T.V. Written, recorded and produced by Du Blonde (aka Beth Jeans Houghton), Homecoming is a refreshing taste of pop-grunge finery, featuring guests including Shirley Manson, Ezra Furman, Andy Bell (Ride/Oasis), The Farting Suffragettes, and members of Girl Ray and Tunng among others.

The album began as a few songs hashed out on a porch in LA in early 2020, and as Houghton’s desire to create something self-made and self-released merged with the then incoming pandemic. Admirers of Du Blonde’s previous two studio albums (2015’s Welcome Back to Milk and 2019’s Lung Bread for Daddy) might be surprised to find that Homecoming takes on the form of a pop record. The garage rock, grunge and metal guitar licks that have come to define Du Blonde are still there in spades, but as a whole the direction of the album is pop through and through. Houghton’s freak flag is still flying high however, a fact that’s no more apparent than on ‘Smoking Me Out’, a bizarre mash up of 80’s shock rock, metal and 60’s pop group harmonies. This defiant and energetic attitude can be heard throughout Homecoming, whether writing about her medication (30mg of citalopram, once a day), her queerness on 'I Can’t Help You There' (“I’ve been a queen, I’ve been a king, and still I don’t fit in”), to the joyous and manic explosion of 'Pull The Plug' (“say that I’m deranged, but I’ve been feeling more myself than ever”), Houghton is nothing if not herself, full force and unapologetic in her approach to writing, playing and recording her music”.

As I cannot find many recent interviews with Du Blonde, I am going to look bac at the previous album, 2019’s Lung Bread for Daddy, and an interesting interview from that time. It is a remarkable album that I am keen to bring to focus and source a review about. Before then, DIY spotlighted Beth Jeans Houghton and we learn more about her start and progress:

“First entering the public eye in the late ‘00s with folk-tinged project Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny, the then-teenage singer inked a deal before releasing debut ‘Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose’ in 2012 to a slew of praise, thus declaring her a kind of Florence Welch in Wonderland figure. When she resurfaced three years later with a different name, a new meaty, riffy sound and wearing nothing but a fur coat and fluffy merkin on the cover of (truly excellent) second LP ‘Welcome Back to Milk’ then, it’s fair to say that people were slightly surprised. But, explains Beth, her output had been playing catch up for a while by that point.

“I had a lot of frustration after the first record. I loved it and I’m glad I did it and I stand by it all, but I wrote those tracks when I was 16, recorded them between 16 and 18 and then released them when I was 21. So it’s the difference between being a young teenager and a young adult,” she explains. “I’d changed so much and I felt that, even though people were reacting well to the record, it wasn’t me. That was the main thing about [starting this project], thinking, I’m gonna make what I wanna make finally. Something simpler, with more blunt lyrics, where I can call a spade a spade.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Phil Smithies for DIY

Informed by a nomadic lifestyle spent in and out of LA, where she “never really lived anywhere for more than a couple of months,” that first Du Blonde record rings with big yet consistently surprising melodies and a feeling of exploration. “Having a different name means I can walk out on stage and whatever I do, that’s Du Blonde and then I can go home and be Beth and be my weird self,” she says of the change in thinking. Yet ‘Lung Bread for Daddy’ seems to go a fair way to bridging the gap between the two sides of the now-29-year-old. It’s a record that’s artistically full of life yet underpinned with a strain of darkness and vulnerability - much like a conversation with Beth herself.

But there’s a relatable sense of doubt and honesty beneath the seeming self-confidence (“I’m not as extroverted as I seem...” she chuckles at that assessment) that makes Du Blonde a far more empathetic author than on first merkin-clad glance. Take new track ‘Holiday Resort’, in which, over fuzzy, simply-strummed chords she sings “Spoke to my doctor, he said I’m past my peak / All my eggs are dying, in my twenties I’m antique”. “My mum owned her house when she was 21 on the wage that she made, and I think, well what the fuck am I doing?!” she says of the track. “But then you look around and everybody else is like that too.” Shortly after in the track, meanwhile, she serves up a natty one-liner about sitting in her room “pulling pubic hairs from the crotch of [her] swimming costume”. It is, we note, kind of brilliantly disgusting. “But that’s what my life is!” she laughs. “I’ve always felt like the more open I can be about gross stuff, the less I feel worried about it. In all of my relationships, I’ve had a real issue with shitting near the other person if I know that they’ll hear it or smell it, to the point where I’ll be constipated for a week. But then my last boyfriend, I accidentally farted in front of him a couple of times and he didn’t give a shit. I felt so free! I accidentally shat myself in front of him because I had sepsis and I didn’t care! If you can either find people who are OK with you being human, or you can just be like ‘I am human’ then that’s so freeing”.

Before concluding, I want to bring in a positive review for Du Blonde’s previous album. Lung Bread for Daddy is a tremendous album that everyone should listen to. Whilst I feel Homecoming is a slightly stronger record, Lung Bread for Daddy is magnificent. This is what AllMusic wrote when they sat down with the album:

“Whether working as Du Blonde or under her given name, Beth Jeans Houghton pours all of herself into her music, and never more so than on Lung Bread for Daddy. On Du Blonde's second album, Houghton takes full creative control -- from songwriting to production to the self-portrait that graces the cover -- on a set of songs about losing control and getting it back. Written and recorded after she sought help for her lifelong anxiety and depression in early 2018, Lung Bread for Daddy finds her crawling back from the bottom, leaving behind old lovers, old worries, and old identities (Houghton is non-binary). Her hard-earned victories are reflected in the album's world-weary yet liberated vibe and, especially, in the roughness of her voice. She peels paint from the walls with the scream that punctuates "Coffee Machine"; rasps out confessions like "All my eggs are dying/In my twenties, I'm antique" on "Holiday Resort"; and crows about the end of a bad relationship on "Angel," where her elation is echoed by a heroic guitar solo. Moments like these wouldn't have been possible without Welcome to Back to Milk, which began the shift from the ethereal folk-psych-pop of Beth Jeans Houghton & the Hooves of Destiny to the grittier world of Du Blonde.

While "Baby Talk"'s bluesy wallop echoes the Milk highlight "Black Flag," on Daddy, Houghton discovers more organic ways of integrating the theatricality of her older work with the bluntness of her newer persona. She evokes Hole's and Liz Phair's defiance and anthemically grungy chords on "Take Out Chicken," then makes them weird on "Peach Meat," adding lurid synth strings and samples that magnify the unease when she intones, "you're very kind and you're very bad." Later, "RBY," a soundtrack-worthy power ballad from beyond the grave, exploits the syrupy melodies of early-'70s AM pop and glam rock's majestic guitars for all they're worth. Here and throughout the album, Houghton's songwriting is more vivid than ever. On her previous albums, her way with words frequently took second or third place to her powerhouse vocals and musicianship, but on Lung Bread for Daddy, it's a vital part of the album's power. Her kiss-off to an ex on "Acetone" is equally clever and cathartic ("Though you tried to make a mark/You only loved me in the dark/I'll wash it off in a bath of blood and acetone"); on "On the Radio," she finds poetry in a doomed relationship ("I don't seem to suit you/But you still want to try me on and see"). Calling this Houghton's most consistent album undersells it -- the way every part of Lung Bread for Daddy comes together to create a ragged but ultimately uplifting self-portrait of Du Blonde makes for thrilling listening”.

The incredible Du Blonde is releasing so much fantastic music right now. Go and get her Homecoming album and bond with one of the finest and most promising artists in Britain. I think that Beth Jeans Houghton is such a huge talent and we will hear so many more albums from her. As Du Blonde, we have this incredible moniker that is making…