In the deep Upstate New York winter of 2022, trees bare and taunting, Nandi Rose found herself searching for an apricitic clarity. She has always found the season difficult; its ruthless theft of birdsong and flora, heavy clouds low and smothering what little light remains. But the cacophonous silence of that winter was particularly brutal. It should have been stirred by the growth of life, a promise of a new chapter, a bright dawn, as Rose learned she was pregnant with her first child. That promise was broken in early December, when stillness took over the ultrasound screen; slow-motion mouths told her the life inside her had ended. Like a snapped branch weighed down by leaden frost, Rose lost a part of her future she thought would blossom.

Baldwin tells us we must say yes to life, to “embrace it wherever it is found – and it is found in terrible places – nevertheless, there it is.” This is the guiding force of See You At The Maypole, the sixth full-length album in Half Waif’s prolific catalog. If we look for color in the midst of our own personal winters, the brightness will soon begin to bounce off the snow. This gathering of resilience and clutching of chiaroscuro––celebrating both light and dark––guides us on a journey towards acceptance and surrender. Rose had to figure out how to love her life, even if it didn’t look like what she wanted it to.

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