Kings Place and Parallel Lines are proud to present Half Waif – the musical home of New York singer-songwriter-producer Nandi Rose – on the back of her new album ‘See You At The Maypole’. With support from Charlotte Jacobs, who makes jazz-flecked avant-pop music.

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.

See You At The Maypole was originally intended as a departure from the darker works of Half Waif. Whereas 2021’s Mythopoetics dealt with familial traumas and the patterns we carry with us, Rose––armed with the anticipation of planning her own family––envisioned a new collection of soft and joyous odes to motherhood, and to new beginnings. That writing sparked in the summer of 2021 at a solo retreat in the Catskills, as melodies formed in a small cabin overlooking a luscious and rain-rippled pond. A month later, Rose found out she was pregnant and anticipated nine months of writing through a new, maternal lens, speckled with the verdure of certainty. But when that soundless morning arrived in December, See You At The Maypole took on a new life. One that would seize the uncomfortable reigns of uncertainty.

See You At The Maypole is a recognition of personal sadness, and a call to ecstatic togetherness. It’s gathering the colors of our spirit, in all its shades, and making something intricate and remarkable. The ceremonial folk dance performed around a maypole is filled with fauna and flora, with ribbons woven into complex braids incapable of unraveling; these dances are survivals of ancient ritual, honoring the living trees, and the return of Spring and fertility. These patterns––this dance––cannot be completed alone, and so, Half Waif welcomes others to join her, a collective of bleeding color. “We are so much stronger for the colorful experiences we go through,” she says. “That’s where we find our humanity and find each other.”

See You At The Maypole is out on October 4th via ANTI- it.

This event will last approximately 2 hours, including an interval.

This is a standing event.

‘Beautiful new song Figurine ranks with some of Half Waif’s most personal works – dealing with her miscarriage, it somehow learns to look towards the light. “Not everyone will go through a miscarriage, but this is a song about how to continue on after losing something precious, how to find the light on your face again,” she says. Clash Magazine

About Charlotte Jacobs:

Vocalist, composer, and producer Charlotte Jacobs makes jazz-flecked avant-pop shaped by literature as well as movement and visual art. Raised in her parents’ gallery in the Flanders countryside, the Belgian-born artist found an affinity with contemporary dance as an adolescent, motivated by choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, before making the pivot to music and studying jazz vocals at The Royal Conservatory of Ghent.

Arranged and produced by Jacobs with the help of engineer and producer Zubin Hensler, a t l a s, her debut solo full-length—and first for New Amsterdam Records—showcases her interest in language as a tool for expression and as a means of grounding her musical ideas. Spanning both Dutch and English, the LP incorporates spoken language for the first time, creating vocal dynamics that add depth and dimension.