Half Waif – the moniker of musician Nandi Rose – released See You at the Maypole last year, a whirling kaleidoscope of fragile melodies and triumphant determination. It’s a record informed of great trauma but still finding hope in the messy epilogue of emotional and physical loss. Today, we hear a portion of that work from a completely new perspective. Experimentalist claire rousay has turned her investigational lens toward the Baroque loveliness that Rose effortlessly crafts. And on rousay’s remix of “Ephemeral Being”, we’re pulled away from the ethereal shimmer of the original and into a darker and more fragmentary world of found sounds and vocal manipulation. rousay perfectly distills the raw emotion and turmoil at the heart of Rose’s elegiac narrative.
“I’m a big fan of Claire’s music, particularly her capacity to transform everyday textures and sound bites–pieces of sonic ephemera–into gorgeous, scintillating song forms,” Rose explains. “While working on the remix, Claire emailed me to ask if I’d record a little bit of audio, talking about the background of the song, which she then quickly and brilliantly wove into the ending of the piece. It was a fun back-and-forth, and I think the remix sheds new light on the song, as if it were shattered into stained glass shards and then mosaic’d back together again.”
Listen below.
See You at the Maypole is out now via Anti. Follow Half Waif on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
