Neu Waxahatchee

: Waxahatchee
Based: Brooklyn, NY
Listen: ‘Be Good’
Similar to: Jenny Lewis

23 year old Alabama born twin sisters Alison and Katie Crutchfield are siblings that are forging two very distinct but fascinating paths through the US indie underground. While spending their teens entrenched in the underground rock scene in Birmingham, the sisters originally played together in a low-budget ramshackle pop punk band named P.S Eliot, which disbanded in 2011. While her sister Alison now fronts brilliantly noisy guitar pop upstarts Swearin’, Katie Crutchfield has embarked on a more introspective and a world-weary direction with the evocative, confessional sound of Waxahatchee.

Named after Waxahatchee creek in her native state of Alabama where she recorded her ultra stark and primitive debut, 2012’s ‘American Weekend’ at her parents lake house, Waxahatchee is a pseudonym that allows Crutchfield to bear her soul. Her music is at times unbearably quiet and unassuming, full of nothing more than rickety acoustic guitar strums and sussurating vocal whispers, at other moments her voice swells with emotion and passion. It’s the sort of music that belies any notion that punk rock and underground indie needs to be loud and uncompromising to make a statement.

Crutchfield is fascinated with poetry and the power of words to articulate her feelings and desires. She’s an artist unafraid to revel in desolate sadness, as she sings on ‘American Weekend’s’ ‘Grass Stain’, “I don’t care if I’m too young to be unhappy.” It’s a supremely powerful statement.

Crutchfield’s second album as Waxahatchee promises to be even more affecting. Still defined by an ingrained DIY aesthetic that seems to run through much of the very best US indie, ‘Cerulean Salt’ is an album that sees Crutchfield deal with the pains of growing up and seeing the innocent promise of youth dulled by the relentless torpor of just gettin’ by. The lead track ‘Peace & Quiet’ shows Crutchfield broadening her sound with the use of electric guitars for the first time. It is the sound of Waxahatchee blossoming and becoming one of US indie’s most vital and compelling new voices.

‘Cerulean Salt’ is released on 5th March 2013 through Don Giovanni Records.