Techno viral: Waxahatchee Announces Full Album Livestream Series This June

WAXAHATCHEE

TO PLAY HER 5 ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY

AS PART OF SPECIAL LIVESTREAM SERIES THIS JUNE

INCLUDING AMERICAN WEEKEND + CERULEAN SALT

SAINT CLOUD

OUT NOW VIA MERGE RECORDS

Poster by Jess Rotter (@rotterandfriends)

Waxahatchee (aka Katie Crutchfield) released her critically acclaimed album Saint Cloud in March via Merge Records. In the wake of her postponed spring tour, Waxahatchee has announced a series of livestreams that will take her through her entire discography. A full schedule and rundown is below. Tickets $15 per show and $50 for the entire series.

Katie had this to say about the shows:

I’m announcing a run of five livestreams where I play all five of my albums in their entirety. This idea was born as a way to help support my band and crew through this time where we’ve had to cancel and move shows, thus causing a huge financial burden. I’m also donating a portion of the ticket sales to indie promoters around the country who have been so warm and hospitable to me over the years but are now facing a huge strain on their business.

I’ve wanted to go back into my catalog and play some of the deep cuts for a while, and this seems like a perfect way for me to do it. Join us every Monday in June.

xoxo katie

Livestream Schedule:

06/01 - American Weekend

06/08 - Cerulean Salt

06/15 - Ivy Tripp

06/22 - Out In The Storm

06/29 - Saint Cloud

Tickets are available HERE.

ACCLAIM FOR SAINT CLOUD:

"Her best album yet." - Rolling Stone

"She sounds untethered to the past, newly centered, like she's got enough time to wander and enjoy the scenery along the way." - Pitchfork

"The little frictions of a continuing relationship crest and subside and continue to smolder in "Lilacs"...It's an unhurried folk-rock tune, with a ticking two-chord vamp for verses, that has Katie Crutchfield examining every lingering slight and potential ambivalence while sizing up her own obsessiveness. Instead of a happy ending, there's a tentative reckoning." - New York Times on "Lilacs"

"Clear-eyed self-reflection with the distortion dialed down... The first single pulses with palpable warmth and radiates self-acceptance." - NPR

"Crutchfield's voice is more versatile than ever. Every enunciation feels purposeful, whether she's gasping and coming up for air or howling into the night sky." - Stereogum

"The finest work of Crutchfield's career, both warmly inviting and bracingly cathartic, and one of the very best albums of early 2020." - UPROXX

"The lead single "Fire" shows Crutchfield easing down the pace, uplifting the twangy country instrumentation, and definitively stepping away from her basement show roots, firmly embracing her status as a leader of the new generation of singer-songwriters." - The Key XPN

"The lead track "Fire" embodies that sonically airy, lyrically direct approach. Minimal instrumentation carries the song's steady step, leaving a clearing for Crutchfield to vocally ebb and flow in her unique delivery." - Consequence of Sound

"Confessional lyrics and irresistible hooks." - Time Out

"Katie Crutchfield writes the sort of songs that immediately stop you in your tracks is as immovable a fact of life as the sun rising each morning." - Guitar World

"Reminds me of Dylan." - SPIN

"The track is as strong as it is vulnerable, with triumphant, quiet drums that serve as a battle cry for Katie Crutchfield's newfound determination in sobriety. Most notably, it's Waxahatchee's most direct pop song since Ivy Tripp's excellent "La Loose," a return to form with a distinctly modern, distinctly Crutchfield touch." - Paste

"While the first single might be named after the most destructive classical element, the record's sound generally shares more in common with air-it feels breezily triumphant, sometimes nearly weightless, like a burden has been lifted, even when it's clear that weightlessness was hard-earned." - The AV Club

Purchase and stream Saint Cloud here.

****

While her last two records featured the kind of big guitars, well-honed noise, and battering sounds that characterized her Philadelphia scene and strongly influenced a burgeoning new class of singer-songwriters, Saint Cloud strips back those layers to create space for Crutchfield's voice and lyrics. The result is a classic Americana sound with modern touches befitting an artist who has emerged as one of the signature storytellers of her time.

From the origins of her band name-the beloved creek behind her childhood home-to scene-setting classics like "Noccalula" and "Sparks Fly," listening to Waxahatchee has always felt like being invited along on a journey with a steely-eyed navigator. On Saint Cloud, Crutchfield adds a new sense of perspective to her travels. Reflecting on this, she says, "I think all of my records are turbulent and emotional, but this one feels like it has a little dose of enlightenment. It feels a little more calm and less reckless."

Many of the narratives on Saint Cloud concern addiction and the havoc it wreaks on ourselves and our loved ones, as Crutchfield comes to a deeper understanding of love not only for those around her but for herself. This coalesces most clearly on "Fire," which she says was literally written in transit, during a drive over the Mississippi River into West Memphis, and serves as a love song to herself, a paean to moving past shame into a place of unconditional self-acceptance. Coming from a songwriter long accustomed to looking in other directions for love, it's a stirring moment when Crutchfield sings, "I take it for granted/If I could love you unconditionally/I could iron out the edges of the darkest sky."

Which is not to say that Saint Cloud lacks Crutchfield's signature poetry on matters of romantic love. Still, her personal evolution in this area is evident too, as this time around, Crutchfield examines what it really means to be with someone and how it feels to see our own patterns more clearly. On "Hell," she sings: "I hover above like a deity/But you don't worship me, you don't worship me/You strip the illusion, you did it well/I'll put you through hell."

Crutchfield also looks at what it's like to be romantically involved with another artist, someone in search of their own truth, on "The Eye": "Our feet don't ever touch the ground/Run ourselves ragged town to town/Chasing uncertainty around, a siren sound" and "We leave love behind without a tear or a long goodbye/as we wait for lightning to strike/We are enthralled by the calling of the eye."

And of course, even when Crutchfield is taking a more nuanced approach to love, her ease with all-encompassing sentiments is still clear, with lines like "I give it to you all on a dime/I love you till the day I die" which sound culled from a classic torch song.

Over the course of Saint Cloud's 11 songs, which were recorded in the summer of 2019 at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, TX, and Long Pond in Stuyvesant, NY, and produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Big Red Machine), Crutchfield peels back the distortion of electric guitars to create a wider sonic palette than on any previous Waxahatchee album. It is a record filled with nods to classic country (like the honky tonk ease of "Can't Do Much"), folk-inspired tones (heard in the confessional lilt of "St. Cloud"), and distinctly modern touches (like the pulsating minimalism of "Fire").

To bolster her vision, Crutchfield enlisted Bobby Colombo and Bill Lennox, both of the Detroit-based band Bonny Doon, to serve as her backing band on the record, along with Josh Kaufman (Hiss Golden Messenger, Bonny Light Horseman) on guitar and keyboards and Nick Kinsey (Kevin Morby, Elvis Perkins) on drums and percussion. Bonny Doon will also perform as Crutchfield's live band during her extensive tours planned for 2020, which include the US and Europe.

Saint Cloud marks the beginning of a journey for Crutchfield, one that sees her leaving behind past vices and the comfortable environs of her Philadelphia scene to head south in search of something new. If on her previous work Crutchfield was out in the storm, she's now firmly in the eye of it, taking stock of her past with a clear perspective and gathering the strength to carry onward.