Caretaker is the Anti- label debut for Half Waif, the project of Pinegrove keyboardist Nandi Rose Plunkett, and fourth album overall from the band (other members include Pinegrove drummer Zack Levine). Despite the label move, it's a follow-up both stylistically and thematically to 2018's Lavender, as it revisits themes of displacement, isolation, and connection. The act of being uprooted is a major influence and bittersweet legacy of the songwriter's family going back multiple generations: her grandmother was displaced following the Partition of India, and her mother was an Indian refugee from Uganda. Sonically speaking, it's a similarly colored but higher-contrast outing, with additional collaborators including, among others, multiple string players, woodwind Izaak Mills (Jherek Bischoff, Los Campesinos!) and percussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms for Peace). Caretaker was co-produced by Plunkett and Lavender's David Tolomei. It opens with the a cappella vocal line "Going nowhere fast now," before establishing a delicate electronic-acoustic palette built from rhythmic, plucked tones, humming keys, woodwinds, electronic drums, and layered vocals. The song's soft-spoken, yearning tone persists throughout the record, which approaches wistful electro-pop on "Siren," delicate art rock on tracks like "Clouds Rest," the Kate Bush-evoking "My Best Self," and lyrical electro-folk-rock on "Blinking Light." Any variances are subtle, however, as Caretaker invites listeners into a reliably reflective, composed space. The album closes with the ghostly, theatrical "Window Place" ("My life feels like a window/The view is changed"). A reassuring power ballad, it's rooted in electric piano but, in tune with the rest of the tracks, shaded with enigmatic atmosphere. ~ Marcy Donelson, Rovi

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

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