Following Half Waif’s 2018 album Lavender, Nandi Rose is back with a new album on the way: The Caretaker is set for release on March 27, and it will be her first album released on Anti-. The announcement is accompanied by a video for “Ordinary Talk,” a slow-burning tune about finding comfort in being completely average and typical. Rose said of the song and its video:
“Recognizing your own ordinariness can be depressing, or it can be a relief. In ‘Ordinary Talk,’ I wanted to honor and celebrate my ordinariness as an incredible tool for making me feel less alone. The song is a reassurance that feeling bad – or ‘ill’ – isn’t something that needs to be corrected. There’s a depth of experience that comes from feeling emotions at their extremes. And it is, in fact, this vivid, varied messiness that makes us human and ordinary. The corresponding video, written in collaboration with director Kenna Hynes, tracks the progression from isolation to communion as we move from a tableau of a troupe of strange courtiers to the neon lights of a good old house party. And as the song shifts and melts away, the cast of characters follows and looks outward: up toward the vast night with its unsettling drift of stars, over a vista of coffee cups and blue TV screens and folded t-shirts – the million tiny moments that define our days.”
She also said of the album, “I kind of created a character. She’s someone who has been entrusted with taking care of this estate, taking care of the land, and she’s not doing a very good job. The weeds are growing everywhere, and she’s not taking care of herself.”
Watch the “Ordinary Talk” video above, and below, find the The Caretaker art and tracklist, as well as Half Waif’s upcoming tour dates.
1. “Clouds Rest”
2. “Siren”
3. “Ordinary Talk”
4. “My Best Self”
5. “In August”
6. “Lapsing”
7. “Halogen 2”
8. “Blinking Light”
9. “Brace”
10. “Generation”
11. “Window Place”
02/04 — Portland, ME @ State Theatre *
02/05 — Port Chester, NY @ The Capitol Theatre *
02/06 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall *
03/27 — Brooklyn, NY @ Public Records ^
05/05 — Boston, MA @ Cafe 939
05/06 — Northhampton, MA @ Iron Horse
05/07 — Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
05/08 — Toronto, ON @ Baby G
05/09 — Detroit, MI @ Deluxx Fluxx
05/10 — Chicago, IL @ Schubas
05/12 — Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
05/13 — Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
05/15 — Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
05/16 — Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
05/18 — San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
05/20 — Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
05/21 — Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge
06/06 — Peterborough, NH @ The Thing in the Spring
* with Calexico and Iron & Wine
^ The Caretaker release show
