Mythopoetics, the remarkable record Nandi Rose released as Half Waif in 2019, wove together stories from her life and family, contending with ideas of legacy and aging in grand, sweeping fashion. It’s so densely packed that listening to the album now feels almost like revisiting a greatest hits collection; I remember hearing many of its songs for the first time as if it were yesterday. But a single glance at material collected on Half Waif’s brand new LP, the 17-track See You at the Maypole, is a stark reminder of the violent and miraculous passage of time, just how much a few years contain. Rose made the record in the midst, or the edges, of immense personal turmoil: she found out she was pregnant in the summer of 2021, then endured a miscarriage that December, followed by months of medical complications. Working with co-producer Zubin Hensler, Rose hangs onto the music to capture the cosmic tide of anticipation, the magnitude of hurt and exhaustion, the hunger for a road ahead, the sounds of rejoicing in beauty and community, all swirling into one. It’s the kind of album we tend to call an emotional triumph, but it’s also a marvel of attention: to Rose’s immediate surroundings, to her stream of consciousness, to the particular cadence and melodic potential of words, to the textures and colour in music and beyond. It’s in this transformative wavelength Rose hopes we can all meet: feet firm on the ground, head up to taste the sky, moving on.
We caught up with Half Waif to talk about some of the inspirations behind See You at the Maypole, including driving, Sibylle Baier, mother figures, Sufjan Stevens’ The Age of Adz, and more.
Driving
Driving is referenced throughout the album, but the song that stands out most is ‘I-90’. It combines a lot of what driving signifies on the album – searching, loss, freedom, sunset hunting. Tell me what it brings up for you.
For a while, I lived in New York City, and I toured a lot in the 2010s, coming up as a band. At that point, I actually really didn’t like driving, so I had my bandmates drive. To this day, I still don’t drive in New York City. But driving where I live now, in upstate New York – I live less than an hour from where I grew up in Western Massachusetts, so these kinds of roads, this landscape, it’s so familiar to me. When I learned to drive, I was driving these kinds of roads – small county roads, county highways – which is so different from getting on a big open highway, which I’ll get to about I-90. I was doing a lot of driving that winter around country roads near my house, listening to music, but I also came up with this technique that I ended up using a lot on the record – not that this is an innovative technique, but it was new to me – which is to record voice memos. Sometimes I would sing, but sometimes I would just speak. A couple songs on the album, like ‘Shirtsleeves’, have voice memos in them. But ‘Sunset Hunting’ actually started as a completely spoken voice memo. I got in the car, turned on the voice memo on, and just started narrating. I later went back and added a melody and chords to that.
‘I-90’ also began as a voice memo. That whole end section – “driving into purple twilight” – was me improvising and them transcribing it to the chords of that song. You mentioned freedom – it’s funny, I hadn’t thought of it that way, but there’s a certain amount of freedom you have in the container of your car, to sing and try things out. And I never really thought to press record before and capture those moments. But it became a way to ground myself in the moment and describe my surroundings and what was happening. The end section of ‘I-90’ is just me singing about, yeah, driving into purple twilight, and there’s a truck, a sunset, white lines on the road, green trees – it was really just narrating as a way to put a stake in the ground at a time in my life where it felt like things were getting away from me.
My life had taken a detour. It looked so different than I thought it was going to look. I just had a miscarriage out of nowhere with no signs or symptoms. My body was not recovering, I was not moving on, I was very stuck in this physical vessel. And so, to get in the car and feel that sense of motion, and then be able to ground myself in a moment that felt so difficult to be in, but I was forcing myself to be there – to say, “Okay, this what’s happening, this is what I see,” and, “There is motion, even if I don’t feel it in my body,” because I was moving forward in the car. I think that was a way to give myself something that I was lacking. And it’s really cool that these songs were born out of this very specific way of writing.
More specifically, you mentioned sunset hunting, and that was almost a spiritual practice I developed during that time. I literally felt like I was hunting something – I was hungry for it. I needed to feed off this phenomenon that happened every night and that I couldn’t see at my house, there’s too many trees surrounding us. So I had to get in the car and physically go find them. It was a way of, first of all, bringing color into my life at a very colourless time. It was winter, not a lot of colour in the landscape, my life felt very bleak. I needed to see this glorious display in the sky. I needed a reminder that there was still motion, change, and transformation cycles, even when I felt like I wasn’t moving forward. And just wanting to find beauty. The winter is a brutal time – where I live, there’s not a lot of easily accessible beauty.
And that’s what I felt like Sufjan was doing, and it’s a tricky thing to do. It’s like, how do you make that joyful? How do you make it celebratory? And I think that’s something that I really wanted to do, too. I wanted to say, “This was really hard, but I want to share it with you in a way that’s celebratory and feels like it’s a part of life.”
So yeah, I think that’s definitely a parallel, and I think there’s something about the way that he’s able to be so vulnerable and yet so strong at the same time that I really admire. And I think that’s something that I wanted to strive for on this record as well.
So, the harmonizing speech videos on YouTube – that was a quarantine thing. I was just looking for ways to decompress and have fun. I stumbled upon these videos where people take clips of speeches, like political speeches or motivational talks, and they harmonize the voices to create these beautiful, ethereal sounds. I found them so fascinating and captivating. There was something about the way they transformed these ordinary speeches into something almost otherworldly that really struck a chord with me.
It got me thinking about the power of words and how they can be transformed through music and sound. I started playing around with harmonizing my own voice with snippets of speeches and other spoken word recordings. It was a playful and creative exercise that allowed me to experiment with different textures and tones in my music.
Ultimately, I think it added a unique element to some of the songs on See You at the Maypole. It brought in a sense of whimsy and curiosity that balanced out the heavier themes and emotions present in the music. Plus, it was just a lot of fun to do. It’s important to remember to have fun and play around with your art, even when exploring deep and introspective topics.
And I was watching both of these women go through these intense battles and showing such strength and resilience. It was a reminder of the power of motherhood in all its forms, and how we can draw strength from those figures in our lives. So, I wanted to explore all these different aspects of mothering and how it can manifest in our lives, not just in the traditional sense of giving birth, but in the ways we nurture and care for others, and how we find strength and guidance from the earth and the women who inspire us. It was a deeply personal and emotional journey, but one that ultimately led to a greater understanding and appreciation of the many forms of motherhood in our lives.
Thich Nhat Hahn’s teachings have always been a source of comfort and guidance for me. His emphasis on mindfulness, compassion, and interconnectedness has been a guiding light for me during difficult times. When my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, his teachings on impermanence and acceptance helped me navigate through the uncertainty and fear. His words reminded me to stay present and grounded, even in the face of overwhelming emotions.
His quote, “You have arrived. You are home,” has always resonated with me, especially during moments of loss and upheaval. It serves as a reminder that no matter what challenges we face, we can always find peace and solace within ourselves. Thich Nhat Hahn’s wisdom continues to inspire me to cultivate a sense of inner peace and resilience, even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. Recuerdo estar sentada en este estacionamiento leyendo eso; la lluvia golpeaba el parabrisas mientras leía sobre su fallecimiento, y recordando esta historia que mi papá me contó sobre una de sus experiencias con Thich Nhat Hanh en Plum Village, cuando lo encontró hablando con un grupo de niños de la escuela. Les estaba enseñando estas ideas de continuación: no hay nacimiento, no hay muerte, las cosas simplemente continúan. Él dijo: “Voy a quemar este trozo de papel, ¿qué le sucede?” Y se convierte en humo. Los niños dijeron: “Oh, se convirtió en humo.” Y luego él les dijo: “Sí, y luego el humo va a subir al cielo. Así que si llueve más tarde y la lluvia cae sobre ti, podrías decir, ‘Hola, pequeño trozo de papel,’ porque sabes que ese papel se convirtió en humo que se convirtió en nubes que se convirtieron en lluvia.”
Me encanta esa historia. Es una idea tan simple, se la contó a los niños de la escuela, pero contiene tantas semillas de sabiduría. Así que en ese momento en el que estaba lidiando con, “Dios mío, esta persona a la que amo profundamente tal vez nos va a dejar en cuestión de meses,” fue casi como si el fallecimiento de Thich Nhat Hanh en 24 horas fuera como… No creo que esto fuera un mensaje para mí, pero sí saqué un mensaje de ello. La sincronización de todo fue bastante notable, y lloviendo en ese momento, pensé que incluso en su fallecimiento, él me estaba dando su enseñanza. En ese momento, estaba leyendo muchas citas suyas mientras escribía, así que sus palabras están realmente entrelazadas en varias canciones del disco. Estamos hablando de formas que se entrelazan en otras cosas; puedo ver esta línea directa de un pequeñísimo pedazo de su magnífico espíritu convirtiéndose en parte de esta música.
Esta entrevista ha sido editada y condensada para mayor claridad y extensión.
See You at the Maypole de Half Waif ya está disponible a través de ANTI-.
See You At The Maypole de Half Waif
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