Waxahatchee's third LP, and first for Merge Records, came out in April. It was one of many, many albums this year that I spent time with but, either through laziness or lack of organization, never got around to reviewing. I may have to do a big push at the end of the year focusing on those.
Katie Crutchfield's Waxahatchee project has been one of my favorite musical things over the last couple of years. The rawness of her songwriting touches on some of those things for me that I think we try to ignore or tamp down as we go through life, and sitting down with one of her records is a cathartic experience. I can't tell you how sad I was when Asbury Lanes announced that they wouldn't be sticking it out long enough to host Waxahatchee this past October.
Ivy Tripp takes Waxahatchee in a slightly different direction. The songwriting is still there; but, this time, instead of the lo-fi feel of a bedroom recording, the album features some electronic embellishment. That new direction features prominently on "La Loose."
The Naomi Yang-directed video finds Crutchfield in open fields and an abandoned amusement park as she does an impressive job of conveying the emotion of "La Loose," a song that wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack from one of the John Hughes films of my youth.
Waxahatchee will be playing a couple of NYC shows in the next couple of weeks. Tonight, Crutchfield and her band are part of the sold out Ground Control Touring 15th anniversary mega-party at Webster Hall. On December 13th Waxahatchee have the enviable task of opening for Sleater-Kinney at Terminal 5. Tickets for that one are, amazingly, still available.
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