Treading the line between Pixies, Hole, and a particular guitar pop je ne sais quoi, Du Blonde’s fourth album is a punchy splash of acerbic melodic colour. 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, Ride’s 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, as Houghton’s desire to create something self-made and self-released merged with the then incoming pandemic.
Fans 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.
Due for release in April 2021, ‘Homecoming’ is the first record to be engineered, produced and self released by Du Blonde. Written and recorded over several sessions between Los Angeles, London and Newcastle, ‘Homecoming’ is a no holds barred collection of Garage, Glam and hard rock finery, featuring a couple of tear-your-hair-out slow saddies for good measure.
“WelcomeBackToMilk” is the studio album by Beth Jeans Houghton and the first for her under the project DuBlonde, released in the United Kingdom on 18th May 2015 by Mute Records. The album was written, composed, and performed by DuBlonde and produced by Bad Seed and Grinderman member Jim Sclavunos.
Du Blonde is not a persona or a character, it’s then 25 year old Beth Jeans Houghton ripping it up and starting again. Welcome Back To Milk is the Newcastle-born and sometimes Californian based singer’s second album, but her debut as Du Blonde, and it’s a complete reinvention: new name, new sound, new band, new attitude. Where 2012’s debut Yours Truly Cellophane Nose threw everything at a song, Welcome Back To Milk strips everything back and is one massive release of pent up aggression, captured perfectly by Jim Sclavunos. Heavy riffs, loud drums, vocal snarls contrast beautifully with more poignant balladry and tenderness that fans of Houghton’s previous work will recognise. Future Islands frontman Samuel T Herring also provides guest vocals on My Mind Is On My Mind. Our first taste of Houghton’s latest project is a confident and brilliantly delivered collection of songs. What she does next really is anyone’s guess – perhaps she doesn’t even know herself. Ultimately, though, I guess this complete lack of predictability is a big part of what makes Beth Jeans Houghton such a great artist.
This would appear to be Beth Jeans Houghton’s vision, from start to finish. She’s credited with song writing and vocals (obviously) but also with playing many of the instruments too. No small undertaking then. What you get is intelligent and cutting songcraft. The words (and the way they’re presented) have been honed and re- honed to perfection. There’s a fine intellect at work here. For me (and these things are always personal taste), the simpler arrangements worked best, just piano and voice. There’s a real intimacy and baring of the soul in this album, and it’s done with total honesty and conviction. After Beth Jeans Houghton’s debut album Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose’s release in 2012, she and the band toured extensively, performed at high-profile musical events, including Glastonbury, The Great Escape, Latitude and Bestival.
In November 2012, midway through recording the follow-up in Los Angeles with The Hooves of Destiny, the crisis broke out. “When I listened back to what we’d recorded, I didn’t see any of myself in it… None of it was angry, none of it was sad. I wasn’t being true to myself,” the singer said, speaking to The Observer. She broke up the band and ditched her name, opting for a different sound, described as “spiky, propulsive” and “exhilarating.” This drastic move had been preceded by a breakdown she had in the summer of 2012 in a Zurich hotel room, during a European tour. “I felt my head go. It was the scariest thing. It felt like my brain was melting,” Houghton remembered. After several months of dieting and meditating she completely recovered.
“This is a new sound, a new project. Du Blonde is a new incarnation and one step closer to assuming my ultimate form. Having freed myself from the rusty and bloody shackles of Beth JeansHoughton – both musically and spiritually – I felt it only right to step forth under a new name and let the rituals commence,” Houghton stated, explaining the moniker conversion. Asked what has prevented her from playing louder on Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose, Du Blonde said: “I think a lot of it had to do with the way I learnt how to write and play guitar. I taught myself, and therefore had no concept of time signatures and keys, so often my songs would turn out pretty experimental because, well, they were experiments… Due to the complex or odd nature of the songs I was writing, putting distortion on things just didn’t work. To make the best of a raw, overdriven sound, I needed to keep it simple, which is only something I learned once I had a better grasp on chord progressions and rhythms.
There aren’t many musicians in the country as creative and as interesting as her at this point in time, and “Welcome Back To Milk” represents another triumph in her weird and wonderful saga.“ So BJH ditched the hooves, went blonde and hitched her wagon to a brand new edgier sound. Good for her, so it seems. Sold to the fish in the corner on the chorus alone, with it’s epic drum/guitar mash-up, she’s got one hell of a vocal range that wallops a whole range of emotions into orbit.
Would recommend her new album Lung Bread for Daddy as well.
UK artist Du Blonde (aka Beth Jeans Houghton) will release new album “Homecoming” April 2nd, and the album features appearances from Garbage’s Shirley Manson and Ezra Furman. Here’s the first fizzy track Furman collab, a catchy rocker titled “I’m Glad That We Broke Up.” Due for release in April 2021, ‘Homecoming’ is the first record to be engineered, produced and self released by Du Blonde. Written and recorded over several sessions between Los Angeles, London and Newcastle, ‘Homecoming’ is a no holds barred collection of Garage, Glam and hard rock finery, featuring a couple of tear-your-hair-out slow saddies for good measure.
Du Blonde is back with this 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 , 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 Backto 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.
I’m Glad That We Broke Up (feat. Ezra Furman) · Du Blonde through Daemon T.V Released on: 2021-02-03
Du Blonde has shared a video for “Medicated” featuring Garbage’s Shirley Manson. The grungy alt-rock track will appear on the singer-songwriter’s forthcoming LP, ‘Homecoming’, due out in the spring, though an exact date is still to be confirmed. Discussing the part computer animated, part live action clip, they said: “I shot the video in my childhood bedroom using a green screen Girl Ray gave me at the start of lockdown.
“The spiders are a reference to a hallucination I had in my early teens where I pulled back my bed covers to see thousands of spiders writhing around in my bed, which now I see as a result of extreme anxiety. A lot of the scenarios in the video are a celebration of the things about me that I feel people might feel shame about.
“There’s so much stigma around taking medication in order to ease mental health conditions, so I wanted to express my feelings on the subject which is basically ‘I take medication and I’m stoked about it because thanks to that I’m still alive’.”
Du Blonde’s last album, ‘Lung Bread For Daddy’, landed in 2019.
I have followed the chameleon like career of Beth Jeans Houghton with great interest ever since seeing her Hooves Of Destiny shows at the Musician in Leicester few years ago. Since then after the Hooves of Destiny and, more recently, comes the Du Blonde moniker – complete with an altogether heavier, grittier sound.
Du Blonde may sound like a band, but in fact it is, and always has been, the work of just one person. Beth Jeans Houghton. Her new album “Lung Bread For Daddy” delves even deeper into self sufficiency, seeing Beth take the reigns on production, instrumentation, album artwork and direction of music videos. This project is entirely her own. Lung Bread For Daddy sees a meeting in which Beth’s previous two albums, 2015’s Welcome Back To Milk and her debut Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose, take a seat at the table and make amends. Veering wildly between proto-punk, psych rock and the wholesome song writing of the 1970’s, taking the listener on a journey through the landscape of her past. It is an honest and often uncomfortable look into the life of a person who’s experiences have been touched by a myriad of characters, homes across continents, periods of extreme loneliness, mental illness and a search for an understanding of personal identity. Houghton’s insatiable thirst for creation on her own terms has seen her take charge of every aspect of Lung Bread For Daddy including the brutal self portrait that adorns the cover of this record. Painted from a photograph taken during one of her lowest points, the image depicts Beth devoid not only of makeup, but self worth and confidence.
She will be releasing her second album as Du Blonde titled Lung Bread For Daddy via Moshi Moshi Records on the 22nd February, and it is described as a meeting in which her previous two albums, 2015’s Welcome Back To Milkand her debutYours Truly, Cellophane Nose, take a seat at the table and make amends.
The first single is the autobiographical Angel, referencing the end of a relationship with someone who promises a lot, but delivers very little. Angel by Du Blonde (aka Beth Jeans Houghton). Taken from her new album ‘Lung Bread For Daddy’ out on Moshi Moshi on 22nd February
Du Blonde has announced a new album Lung Bread For Daddy, which sees the self-sufficient artist utilise her multiple skills to try and create the project as independently as possible. “I know exactly what I want my record to sound like,” Houghton explains, “and apart from drums, I have the ability to play all the instruments, so I did.”
Houghton knows her direction, particularly when it comes to visual projects, having made videos for the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, LUMP, and Ezra Furman. Lung Bread For Daddy’s lead track “Buddy” arrives with a self-directed video, which features a bath, three bottles of vegetable oil, and hella spaghetti (37 packets to be precise)
Buddy is her first single from the album with a self-directed video featuring a bathtub, 3 bottles of vegetable oil and 37 packets of spaghetti.
Band Members
Beth Jeans Houghton,
Du Blonde returns with new album ‘Lung Bread For Daddy’ on 22nd February on Moshi Moshi Records
Du Blonde is the project of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Beth Jeans Houghton. She has announced a new album, “Lung Bread For Daddy” for Moshi Moshi Records, and has shared a video for a new song from it, “Buddy.” Lung Bread For Daddy is due out February 22nd, 2019 her first for the label. Houghton self-directed the video for “Buddy,” which features her taking a bath filled with spaghetti.
The album is the follow-up to 2015’s Welcome Back to Milkand 2012’s Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose. The latter album was released under her given name and both came out via Mute Records.
Houghton oversaw every aspect of Lung Bread For Daddy. “I know exactly what I want my record to sound like and apart from drums, I have the ability to play all the instruments, so I did,” she says in a press release.
She even painted the album cover, a self-portrait taken from, as the press release describes it, “a photograph taken during one of her lowest points, the image depicts Beth devoid not only of makeup, but of self-worth and confidence.”
Houghton elaborates: “I look tired and pretty much destroyed, which is a feeling I’ve known many times over; in the aftermath of relationships and that of making a record. Lyrically the album is very naked, so I’m carrying on the nudity of my previous album covers, only this time it’s emotional instead of physical.”
A press release describes the album this way: “Veering wildly between proto-punk, psych rock and the wholesome songwriting of the 1970s, Lung Bread For Daddy takes the listener on a journey through the landscape of her past. It is an honest and often uncomfortable look into the life of a person whose experiences have been touched by a myriad of characters, homes across continents, periods of extreme loneliness, mental illness and a search for an understanding of personal identity.”
Houghton adds: “My lyrics are always autobiographical. I have to be able to identify with what I’m singing, and telling my story is therapeutic.”
Buddy is her first single from the album with a self-directed video featuring a bathtub, 3 bottles of vegetable oil and 37 packets of spaghetti.
Du Blonde returns with new album ‘Lung Bread For Daddy’ on 22nd February on Moshi Moshi Records:
So BJH ditched the hooves, went blonde and hitched her wagon to a brand new edgier sound. Good for her, so it seems. Sold to the fish in the corner on the chorus alone, with it’s epic drum/guitar mash-up, she’s got one hell of a vocal range that wallops a whole range of emotions into orbit. ‘Welcome Back To Milk’ is out now on Mute Records.
Reinvention is the 2015 thing to do; we’ve got Mumford & Sons kitting out at World Of Leather and pawning their banjos, The Vaccines jacking up on candy pop at Dave Fridmann’s studio and Laura Marling channelling Dire Straits. None of them, however, have attempted quite such a complete and total rebirth as Beth Jeans Houghton, whose reincarnation as Du Blonde spins the Newcastle-born, LA-based singer-songwriter’s look, sound and attitude on its head.
The 25-year-old’s debut album, 2012’s ‘Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose’, cast her as a pop star spawned from the imagination of Phoebe from Friends, an unabashed uber-kook with a band named The Hooves Of Destiny and a penchant for mind-bending pixie pop. To see Beth in her new incarnation, you’d assume Du Blonde killed and ate the old Houghton in a forest, and took the face to wear as a mask. That’s her on the cover under snot green Cali-punk lettering, rocking a bleach-blonde merkin and looking like the hell spawn of Dave Lee Roth. Even the song titles come straight from the cock-rock handbook: ‘Raw Honey’, ‘After The Show’, ‘If You’re Legal’, ‘Mr Hyde’.
The music reflects this new image, bringing in snarling, Runaways-style vocals, raging guitars and thunderous drums, a stall set out neatly by the riotous, Arctic Monkeys-like opening track ‘Black Flag’ and ‘Chips To Go’, which follows it with funk-rock flavour and screaming chorus line: “If love is just a word for us then why did I goddamn let it hold me down?”
Clearly, Houghton’s found fertile ground in connecting with her inner rage monster, but there’s a different side to the album too: anthemic glam rock reminiscent of Bowie’s work with guitarist Mick Ronson. It’s there in spectral power ballad ‘Hunter’ and ‘Five Years’-like ‘After The Show’ and, towards the end of the album, in ‘Mind Is On My Mind’, which Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring guests on, his vocal booming in like a communiqué from deep space. There’s a clear kinship: Future Islands have managed to sneak something out-there into the mainstream; thanks to this strong set, Du Blonde should do the same.
Du Blonde has enlisted the help of Future Islands‘enigmatic frontman Samuel T. Herring for new single “Mind Is On My Mind”.
The track features on Du Blonde‘s first album as Du Blonde – previously, who went under the name of Beth Jeans Houghton– which is monikered Welcome Back To Milk. Swanning away from the garage-y tones of lead single “Black Flag”, Blonde x Herring spiral towards surf-noir as if composing the theme for a James Bond flick set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Speaking about writing the cut, Blonde said: “I wrote ‘Mind Is On My Mind’ on the back of a motorbike riding down the Pacific Coast Highway in LA and had to remember it all the way from Topanga to Malibu. I was interested at the time in writing songs with no repeating sections, but rather a succession of acts. A couple of months later, Sam and I took a trip out to the desert and came back to LA to make some music. I played him the track and he got in the booth and ad-libbed his lyrics over the instrumentation. He was done in like one or two takes. When I was back in London I’d become obsessed with these Middle Eastern and Greek guitar scales and I added the lead guitar in the outro as a contrast to Sam’s vocals.”
Welcome Back To Milk is released 18th May by Mute Records, check out these UK Dates
June
3 – BRIGHTON GREEN DOOR STORE
4 – LONDON 100 CLUB
5 – LEEDS BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB
6 – BRISTOL LOUISIANA
7 – NOTTINGHAM THE BODEGA
9 – MANCHESTER DEAF INSTITUTE
10 – GLASGOW BROADCAST
11 – NEWCASTLE THE CLUNY
The Fat Angel Sings 