Waxahatchee

ISSUE #113

Katie Crutchfield has released music under the name Waxatchee for almost ten years now and still gets better and better every year. I know because I've seen her live more times than any other artist. Once I even saw her two nights in a row, Atlanta following Athens, sure to stand in the back the second night so I didn't seem completely crazy. When you get the chance to see a favorite, you take every one; now I'm glad I did as often as I could.

She was all set to tour Saint Cloud, the most recent masterpiece, but instead she had to spend the past month live-streaming shows she could no longer play due to quarantine. Surprisingly, it's a great way to experience live music again. It even has its advantages: you can talk without ruining it for anyone; you can drink without anyone spilling it; you can watch from bed with cheese popcorn; you can even put it on while you work, a human voice to keep you company like the TV on a lonely holiday.

These shows are special because she plays through entire albums, one show for every LP she's ever released, which means you can hear songs never before played live. There are also encores for each—she covers Radiator Hospital and Guided by Voices, and even has Kevin Morby join for a special duet. She gives the stories behind each song, too, and it's a delight to hear her react to the older ones ("The lyrics to this song are pretty crazy," she says, smiling when she gets to "Bathtub." "It's a great lesson in what not to do").

You can tell she's happy just to be playing again, and it's infectious. She lives with Morby in a relationship, and it's cute to see domestic moments like when she laughs at noticing him try to open the fridge as quietly as possible. It's hard to witness love like that outside of fiction, a model for healthy relationships where compassion and creativity can both thrive—we're lucky when people share even the tiniest parts of those lives.

I had to dedicate an issue to the experience, especially since all of the shows are now available to stream until July 14th. I've always felt guilty for using Spotify for Earwyrms, robbing artists of earnings and enabling the shitty parts of this world (my skin and gender do enough of that already). So the links above and below go to the live-streams, and the playlist this week holds some of her best songs: the very first Earwyrms Artist of the Week.

Waxahatchee writes poetry so precise it carves silhouettes out of thin air, and she sings through smoke that's more clove than Marlboro. It feels like sandpaper for the soul. It's hard to explain exactly how something becomes a favorite, though. Who makes the final decision: you, or the songs themselves? I think the same way we build devotion through ordinary acts of care, a favorite band is built from reflex. I put on these albums automatically, like blinking, and that makes them my favorite whether I like it or not.

P.S. Eliot (2009–2011): Technically not Waxahatchee, but P.S. Eliot, her first band, is a spiritual sister that gives us the same great songwriting.

• acid flashbacks. Best line: "Maybe we confuse love for remission / Or complacency for defeat"

American Weekend (2012): She wrote and recorded all of these songs in only seven days, in January 2011, writing two a day in a snowed-in Birmingham—a story in the genre of For Emma, Forever Ago. Lo-fi gold, for fans of Robert Pollard and Elliott Smith.

• Be Good. Best line: "Now I've got friendships to mend / I'm selfishly dispossessed / You don't wanna be my boyfriend / And that's probably for the best"

• Bathtub. Best line: "I tell you not to love me / But I still kiss you when I want to"

• Noccalula. Best line: "Say what you're thinking / I'm watching thoughts dance around in your head / You'll let me down easy or you'll beg for my empathy"

Cerulean Salt (2013): In 2013, I was in the middle of one of those musical droughts, when there's nothing new that clicks and none of the old songs do it anymore—the first winds of a change in identity. Then I heard Cerulean Salt, and I spent the record lying on the floor. It's an album for anyone who's going through a big change, be it a move or a resurrection.

• Brother Bryan. Best line: "My sister's eyes flood like rivers of wine in your absence"

• Coast to Coast. Best line: "When you've indulged every reckless whim / What is the weight of all your weakness"

• Misery Over Dispute. Best line: "If I claim one sole regret / I loved only enough to accept"

Ivy Tripp (2015): For this, her follow-up to a breakthrough, she ditched the simpler instrumentation and got a little wilder in arrangement. The sun doesn't stop shining even in our low points, and sometimes you just have to take a long walk every day—the perfect time to listen to this one.

• Breathless. Best line: "But if I just cloy myself in light / And stare at your picture late at night / Then I could just close my eyes"

• Under a Rock. Best line: "Your ravenous, insatiable / Appetite for the expendable / Will leave you just as hollow as your requiem"

• La Loose. Best line: "I know that I feel more than you do / I selfishly want you here to stick to"

Out in the Storm (2017): She switched out her production team and wrote an album all about the same person, and the result is the best break up album of the decade (tied only with Sharon Van Etten's Are We There).

• Silver. Best line: "The kiss on my lips / Starts to feel unfamiliar / A part of me rots / My skin all turns silver"

• Hear You. Best line: "I stand up on that stage / You sink your teeth, build your own cage / Wait for the coolest girl / You break her down, make her hear you out"

• No Question. Best line: "You went back in time today / Expecting me to do the same"

Saint Cloud (2020): I've come to see this one as a look back at the tunnel, through dust that swirls from a dark place you've finally put behind you. This is what it sounds like to be on the other side.

• Fire. Best line: "If I could love you unconditionally / I could iron out the edges of the darkest sky"

• Witches. Best line: "You take it just like a man, babe / Scathing at the first sight of pain"

• Ruby Falls. Best line: "I tell this story every time / Real love don't follow a straight line / It breaks your neck / It builds you a delicate shrine."