Aural Fix – Half Waif
While live acts return to the stage, the uncertainty faced by the music industry during lockdown is not yet in our rearview. Still, Nandi Rose, the mind behind Half Waif, experienced a remarkable uptick in her musical output at a time when other musicians were forced to take a step back, or embrace a more DIY approach to stay relevant. Rose put out a full-length, The Caretaker, which delighted fans as well as critics, despite being released at the very start of lockdown in 2020, and while writing emotive songs has always been Rose’s strength, connecting with a mostly digital audience in a time of stymied careers was a new transformative feat.
A little over a year later, Rose has dropped another full-length that is more personally reactive to the experience of living through a great pausing of the world’s plans and ambitions. On Mythopoetics, it’s obvious that while Rose wasn’t numb to the collective feelings of being rendered helpless or overworked, it didn’t complicate the speed of her artistic output.
The tracks “Apartment” and “Horse Racing” lay Rose’s emotions bare, whether it’s struggling to move on or resisting the pace of the new normal. Fitting genres like art pop and updated trip-hop into impressive 3-minute tracks, Rose can sound like anything from Bats for Lashes to Braids. Half Waif is currently on tour in support of Mythopoetics and will play Mississippi Studios on November 5th.
