album: The Caretaker - Half Waif

words: steven spoeri

How do you follow up one of the decade’s best albums? It’s a difficult question that very few artists are ever asked to answer with concrete work. In 2018, Half Waif released Lavender, a devastating meditation on coming to terms with impermanence. Now, the Nandi Plunkett-led project is unveiling The Caretaker, which comes in the wake of heightened emotional turbulence at a difficult time, knowingly highlighting the vitality of compassion.

Since Lavender’s release, Plunkett lost her grandmother, married her partner, and settled into a home. Oscillating between defining life events has colored The Caretaker, which finds Half Waif composing with a hard-won confidence. Narratively, Plunkett is still grappling with difficulties but there’s a sense that the answers will be attainable; the compass has been set. Lavender thrived in its familiarity with aimlessness, The Caretaker acknowledges a life that’s more grounded and the steps required to attain that distinction.

Lead-off single “Ordinary Talk” sees Plunkett eyeing a precipice from a sturdier angle, “Walking to the lake, getting in my car, folding up the laundry, taking it too hard, everybody knows this is how we fall apart,” is a line that kicks off a remarkable bridge and clues the listener into a sense of unrest in the face of complacency. Even with the trappings of normalcy, learned impulses are difficult to tame. For someone as perpetually restless as Plunkett, the balance between being still and feeling alive can be tenuous, which is reflected several times over throughout the record.  

While The Caretaker still largely hinges on Plunkett’s acute sense of longing, it’s aided by the knowledge of how the small pains inherent to desire can be healthy. “In August” follows the trail of a lost friendship and the lasting impression that time together ultimately created. Even in despairing situations, the details can be informative and, sometimes, necessary. Personal growth has a different trajectory in every case and can be immensely difficult to examine because it requires the acknowledgment of failure. 

The Caretaker opens with a refrain of “going nowhere fast now” on “Clouds Rest” before Plunkett throws a sideways, knowing wink towards Kate Bush, tempering the defeatism that’s populated Half Waif’s discography in favor of something more refined. Through several of The Caretaker’s passages, Plunkett flirts with old habits but presses forward, calmer and wiser, aware of hardship’s necessity. Repeatedly, The Caretaker finds a source of strength in valuing the extents of tangible and intangible companionship.

“My Best Self”, a breathtaking track that makes staggeringly effective use of vocal manipulation, posits the need for self-love with outward relationships in mind while the painfully gorgeous “Brace” looks at the self’s relation to the body. “Brace”, a return to the melancholic piano-led reveries of Lavender, also floods itself with an irrepressibly empathetic portrait of a fractured relationship that’s continuously working towards various points of healing. Both tracks are articulated with an exacting precision that leaves room for emotional nuance, driving home the point of the record’s title.

Over several releases, Plunkett has considered the many angles and extents of what it meant to receive care. Exertion of that care was looked upon as a gift; a raft to desperately cling to while navigating murky waters. Now, with a potency greatly informed by Lavender’s sea change, Plunkett’s fully realized what authoring caretaking can mean and how its outsize sprawl can encompass every facet of existence. The Caretaker isn’t just the sound of an artist coming into their own confidence, it’s the transcendental work of someone honoring their humanity.