Sounding Softly with Half Waif
A conversation with the Hudson Valley-based musician about the radical power of song, and more.
The first time I met Nandi (Half Waif) was in my home in Troy, NY. She was looking for a place to record and film her EP Portraits; mutual friends recommended our space. The scale of Nandi’s talent is undeniable, but her music is all the more meaningful when you learn just how kind and sincere she is. Over the past decade, she has built upon her classical training to create a bold and unique sound that melds pop and folk songwriting styles with experimental production and arrangements. Since joining the roster of renowned indie label ANTI- Records (Tom Waits, Fleet Foxes, Mavis Staples), Nandi has released the critically acclaimed records The Caretaker (2020) and Mythopoetics (2021), the latter of which was featured on the New York Times’ Best Songs of the Year list. She’s currently putting the finishing touches on her next record.
In an affecting conversation from last month, we talked about the radical power of song, how her life has been altered by the arrival of her baby, and more.
If you’re moved by this conversation, I hope you’ll consider sharing it with a friend, or in any way that feels right to you. Thanks, as always, for reading.
In Conversation with Half Waif
I see songwriting as this extended hand outward into the world. It's taking the inner and bringing it outward.
You’re such an empathetic human and there's a lot of heaviness in the world. I'm wondering if you struggle with how to think about your art in relation to current events? Does it impact what you do and how you make art?
I can't tell you the number of times I've wondered, “why write another song?”, even without the context of heaviness in the world. There are so many songs in the world and I've written so many songs. Why another song? Why that vessel? Why do I feel like that is an important, or productive, space to work through things?1
I think music has this capacity to communicate emotion at a level that transcends words. A song, bringing together the instrumental and the voice, really does speak to a deeper part of humanity. It has the capacity to touch and reach a deeper place. So as a medium in general, I am so taken by music and by songwriting.
I recently launched my next songwriting workshop, which is happening in January, and I felt hesitant to be posting about it online right now because I feel like we should be keeping attention on the genocide that's happening in Gaza. I didn't want to detract from that space or seem as if I wasn't paying attention or just going about life as usual. That's sort of another topic – how do you use social media in this time?
I felt like it was okay for me to be promoting my workshop right now because of what that workshop stands for. What I hope to do in creating that space is to help equip people with the tools to excavate their feelings and put words and music to them: to be able to communicate this ineffable feeling, whether that's a feeling of joy, a feeling of love, a feeling of grief, or whatever it is that they’re experiencing.
Songwriting has the incredible power to heal not only ourselves, but to offer that experience to somebody else. And that's certainly how I've always used songwriting, to heal my inner wounds and get curious about what I'm experiencing in the world. I see songwriting as this extended hand outward into the world. It's taking the inner and bringing it outward.
When we share that, we are standing closer together and showing up for the commitment to better understand each other. The tagline of my songwriting workshop is “solidarity in song”. And that's not to detract from the very real and important ways of showing up at protests and calling your representatives and all of that. It's not to say we should just write songs about it, but that there is a really powerful space for songwriting in this world and in our lives. I believe that has been helping me stay grounded in the work that I do right now.
Your workshop sounds incredible: creating space for people to be vulnerable and excavate their emotions. It’s a radical thing to be able to give space to that and guide people in that journey.
This is the fourth time that I've run it and it's been really powerful for me. I get inspiration from people — whether it's their first time writing a song and they're coming at songwriting in a way that I haven't thought about since I was a kid; or they’ve been doing it for a long time and I'm learning from their techniques. And yeah, the idea of vulnerability. Often in the past I’ve felt maybe a little bit embarrassed by how open and earnest I am, but these are things that I value. It reminded me of this quote that I think David Crosby had said about Joni Mitchell. Like, come on, Joni, “save some for yourself”. Meaning, you don't have to give everything away. But if you have the inclination to do that, I think there's a lot of bravery in it. The relationship between vulnerability and strength is a very clear pipeline. So I commend anyone who comes into my workshop. The first step is being vulnerable and being open. And from there there's so much growth that can happen, but it can't happen until you open that door inside of yourself.
In a recent newsletter you talked about how a song that's going to be on your forthcoming album was like a transmission — it ended up predicting things. Trusting your instincts and trusting the unknowable is so important. I'm wondering if you have any rituals or ways of getting into that heart/headspace for creating and trusting the transmission process?
…you're not an artist because of what you make, you're an artist because of how you see the world.
I think a big part of it is just recognizing that creating looks like a lot of different things. Being an artist and being a creative spirit is not just sitting down at your instrument or at your tool and writing. It's a perspective that you bring into your life. The ritual that you bring to preparing a meal or going for a walk and listening to the world and being in the world. I always talk about Patti Smith as my muse for this idea. You read her books and the way that she talks about her daily life, sitting at the cafe with her cup of black coffee and the brown bread and the olive oil… she imbues her mundane activities with this sense of spiritualism and ritual.
I have a baby now and I haven't written a song in months and months. That can be really discouraging and it can make me feel like, oh, am I even an artist? Am I even a songwriter? I haven't been writing songs, but we have to expand the definition of what it means to be an artist. Something I like to say is you're not an artist because of what you make, you're an artist because of how you see the world. So that's the ritual that I like to bring into every moment. I’m trying to show up for my artistry, even when I'm not sitting at the piano or the computer and writing.
I was having this exact conversation with someone recently, someone who was struggling with feeling like he can’t call himself a “musician”. For me, it's very much a mindset. If you believe that you're a musician, then you are. It doesn't matter if you've done whatever XYZ things that other musicians have done.
That reminds me of when I was 14. I remember I started calling myself a songwriter. I planted my flag in the sand. When you’re 14, you don't know who you are. I was definitely grasping for something to ground me. It was very much that same idea: I'm going to call myself this, and then I'm going to be this. What a superpower that you can tap into.
You mentioned being a new mother. There's obviously the logistical impact that that has, but I'm wondering on a spiritual level, how are you thinking about your art-making now?
Oh, it's so wild. The transition. I’ve wanted to be a mother for a long time, and it's been amazing. But it really did completely flip my life upside down when he arrived. No amount of preparation can prepare you for that. These last few months I’ve been slowly reclaiming parts of my old life, or parts of who I am outside of being River's mother. The image that I've been thinking about is that when he was born, this tidal wave came and completely wiped out our lives. And it was very disorienting. We felt like we were drowning and underwater. And then every day since then the wave is receding and it's leaving behind the sand that was there before the water came. The shoreline is getting uncovered bit by bit, but the sand is reformed. It's never going to be the same sand. The wave has reshaped it.
I'm at the mercy of the river. We called him that for a number of reasons, but there's definitely something very spiritual and philosophical about having a child named River. We are in his flow. We have to submit to the river every moment. But it has felt really good to start to find my creative self again, uncovered from the mother self that took over. I think one of my fears was that I wanted motherhood so much that it would take over the rest of my life. But it hasn't been like that. And that's actually been really nice to find out. I love being a mother, but my art self is also important to me.
I found out recently that I got a grant from this local community fund to work on the book that I started writing last year and have totally abandoned. I might rent a little office space and I just feel so excited and grateful to have this opportunity to work on my book again. I think it's going to be really good to find that balance a bit more.
That's incredible. Congrats.
I'd applied right before River was born. I thought I was so rushed with the application. I didn't feel good it and I honestly forgot about it. To get that email felt like a nice nudge from the universe to do my art.
It will serve me, but it will also be good for River to see his parents living their lives beyond being his parents.
Now that you're nearing the finish line with your upcoming album, do you feel like there's any kind of overarching journey? Or do you see something that's happening between the last few albums and this album?
Yes, I see it now, but I feel like when I was working on this newest album, I was conscious of what I wanted to do differently and how I wanted to evolve. I also think this record probably has the clearest narrative around it because I was starting to write it when I was trying to become pregnant. I thought it was going to be an album about motherhood. And then we had the loss a few months after that and we had a really hard time getting pregnant again. I had a lot of health issues and was sort of stuck in this purgatory for many months. And that stuck place was where I ended up doing most of my writing. I really didn't want to write another sad album. But then I said that to someone and they told me that my sad albums have helped them. And I thought maybe that's the thing I can offer to people.
Sadness is so unique to everyone, but it’s also a thing that everyone experiences. It can be a really direct way of connecting with people.
Totally. And when you're sad or dealing with grief, you don't want to stay there. It's painful. So for me, I'm reaching out and looking for ways to actively move through it so that I can get to the other side. And I remember feeling that when all this happened, I just wanted to love my life. I want to love my life. I found it so hard to be in the moment, because the moment was so inhospitable. And maybe that's also why people connect with it, because they're also looking for a flashlight out of the darkness. We look to art to help us navigate out of that stuck feeling.
It’s a really beautiful thing to be reminded that we're not alone in sadness.
Yes. I had an interesting reaction after the miscarriage… grief looks so different for everyone and there are so many different situations, but I felt like I understood the world and other people more somehow. Like grief is this portal to compassion and understanding. And that is a really beautiful thing. No one gets out of this life without losing something or someone that they love. And so going through that, it felt like I was part of something now. I understood this howling feeling in my body. And now I look at people who are also experiencing grief and its many guises, and I'm seeing them in this deeper, clear-eyed way.
We can stand closer together when we understand each other and our basic human experiences. That was a powerful realization for me.
I just had this really strong sense-memory. I think it was the day after I learned that my dad had died and I was riding the subway. I felt like a shell and I remember looking at all these people around me on the subway. I have such a strong memory of the exact moment of realizing that everyone on that train was going through something. Everyone is dealing with something deep and powerful. It was similar to what you’re describing, feeling connected to people who are going through all kinds of things that we will never know and can't know or understand.
I got chills hearing you talk about that. How courageous we are – courageous, dear hearts that are just going out in the world and we're riding the subway and we're falling apart inside. We're riding the subway and we're ordering food and we're going to the grocery store and we're going about our lives. And yeah, we don't know what people are going through. And it does bring you even more empathy.
Is there an approximate timeline for the next record?
I don't want to say yet because it's still a little bit in flux, but it will come out. There will be new music in 2024, for sure. Figuring out exactly when and what that's going to look like is the fun puzzle we're in right now. How do we put this music out so that people listen to it and care?
There’s one last thing that I want to say that's a total can of worms... I do find it really hard to reconcile the making of your art in a vacuum – being in that sacred, holy space of creating – and then having to switch your brain to the numbers game. Who is going to buy this and how many tickets are we going to sell at shows? And I know so many artists struggle with this. I don't have good streaming numbers and I don't have good ticket sales and I can't get a booking agent.
But for me, I just need to come back to that feeling working on this record. I was going through so much pain, and I was struggling with a lot of stuff, and I got to make this album that I feel really proud of. I just have to keep coming back to that space of love for the craft, because we’re not in control of everything else. I don't know how this record's going to do. I just want to hold this candle inside of me and not let this flame go out. I'm really grateful for what we made and I feel really good about it. That needs to be the center.
I really appreciate you saying that. I know so many people, including myself, also struggle with this. It's so tough. We just need to be focused on making our art. That's all we have control over. The people who connect to your music, they're going to find you and they're going to find your music. All we can do is hold on to that.
And let it go.
A related read from one of my favorite thinkers and musicians
Great interview! Shared it with my artist brother.