Waxahatchee is an American indie music project, formed in 2010 by American singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield, previously a member of P.S. Eliot. The band is named after Waxahatchee Creek, in Alabama, where Crutchfield grew up. Originally an acoustic solo project, her recordings now tend to involve a backing band, and the music has increasingly been performed this way. Crutchfield, as Waxahatchee, has released 5 albums to date: American Weekend, Cerulean Salt, Ivy Tripp, Out in the Storm and Saint Cloud.
History
While a member of P.S. Eliot, a band formed with her twin sister Allison, Crutchfield released her first music as Waxahatchee as a cassette. Her bedroom-recorded debut album, American Weekend, was recorded in 2011 and released on Don Giovanni Records in 2012. Crutchfield wrote and recorded the album in one week at her family home in Birmingham, Alabama. Her lyrics focused on personal relationships, devastation and longing. The album garnered positive reviews and was named a top album of 2012 by Dusted magazine. "Be Good" was a song of the day on National Public Radio, and listed as one of the best 50 songs of 2012. "Catfish" was featured in Welcome to Night Vale. A second album, Cerulean Salt, was released in March 2013 on Don Giovanni Records in the United States and four months later on Wichita Recordings in the U.K. The critically acclaimed album reached #1 on the Official Record Store Chart in July 2013 and scored 8.4 on Pitchfork. Waxahatchee supported Tegan And Sara on their U.K. tour, before playing a headline U.K. tour in October that same year. Crutchfield signed to Merge Records which released her third album, Ivy Tripp, in April 2015. Waxahatchee toured non-stop for the rest of 2015, including tours with Kurt Vile and the Violators and Sleater Kinney. In 2017 Waxahatchee toured with The New Pornographers as well as a headline tour all around the United States. In the autumn months they toured central Europe and Scandinavia in clubs and festivals. Waxahatchee's fourth album Out in the Storm, was released on 14 July 2017 on Merge Records. It moves away from the lo-fi sound of previous albums, partly due to the guidance of co-producer John Agnello. It was recorded in the Miner Street Recordings studio with her former touring band. Sam Sodomsky of Pitchfork wrote of "Katie Crutchfield’s sharp, gorgeous songwriting", "immersive" band sound and "songs that play like fiery exorcisms" in a review of the album. Waxahatchee opened Jawbreaker's first Los Angeles shows in 22 years at the Hollywood Palladium on March 10, 2018 and in New York City at Brooklyn Steel on February 27, 2018. In January of 2020 Waxahatchee announced her 5th album Saint Cloud and released a single called "Fire". The album was recorded in 2019 at Sonic Ranch in Texas and at Long Pond in Stuyvesant, New York with producer Brad Cook. The album features Detroit-based band Bonny Doon. On February 18 she released the single "Lilacs" and on March 16 she released the single "Can't Do Much." In a comprehensive interview with Will Gottsegen at Billboard she spoke about her musical influences and recent sobriety. Waxahatchee made it at No. 7 on Billboard's Emerging Artists chart of April 2020, as her fifth album, Saint Cloud, arrived at No. 1 on Heatseekers Albums, No. 2 on Americana/Folk Albums and No. 6 on Alternative Albums with 7,000 units. The single "Lilacs" same time ranked at No. 36 on the Adult Alternative Songs airplay chart. On Twitter Crutchfield announced on May 27, 2020, that she would ran a series of five live concert streamings, each comprehending at least all songs of one of her studio albums. Starting on Pentecost Monday with American Weekend each following Monday at 8 pm she will dive deep into her backlist. It's an attempt to reach out to her fans and also to generate some income to survive as a musician the COVID-19 pandemic caused annulation of all touring.
Personal life
Katie Crutchfield has been in a relationship with songwriter Kevin Morby since 2017. In 2017, with Morby, she published a cover of After Hours from the Velvet Underground’s 1969 self-titled album. In January 2018, indie labelDead Oceans, from Bloomington, Indiana, published the cooperation single Farewell Transmission b/w The Dark Don't Hide It by Kevin Morby & Waxahatchee, in homage to songwriter Jason Molina. Merge Records published the digital single video Chapel of Pines, on Youtube on 17 July 2018, which led Waxahatchee back to solo work. In interviews, Crutchfield has said that her album Saint Cloud was largely written about her decision to get sober.
