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Songs We Love: Waxahatchee, 'Air'

Waxahatchee, the solo project of Katie Crutchfield, will release <em>Ivy Tripp</em> on April 7.
Jesse Riggins
/
Courtesy of the artist
Waxahatchee, the solo project of Katie Crutchfield, will release Ivy Tripp on April 7.

Being in your 20s can feel so uncertain; it's a time when every interaction seems freighted with extra meaning, while every minor life decision can open up new possibilities and close off others. Few songwriters capture those feelings of directionlessness and transition quite like Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield. Once a hushed solo project born out of the dissolution of P.S. Eliot — a pop-punk band with her twin sister Allison — Waxahatchee has quickly become a band, punctuating her minimal songs with gnarled guitars and punk drumming. In the process, Crutchfield has grown into a confident, emotionally open lyricist who's fully capable of ripping your heart out.

After two superb albums in only a couple years, Waxahatchee is already returning with the just-announced Ivy Tripp, out April 7. And it's clear from the first single, "Air," that the new album continues Crutchfield's evolution.

Against a broader musical palette of swelling keyboards, ghostly vocal harmonies and a stark guitar melody, Crutchfield sings of love and loneliness, second-guessing the nature of a relationship with precision: "When we are moving, we just pretend to be strangers lamenting a means to an end." Later, in the piercing chorus, she acknowledges, "You were patiently giving me everything that I will never need." With "Air," Waxahatchee masterfully embraces change with fragile, gutsy honesty.

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