Album Review :: Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp

Waxahatchee

Ivy Tripp

April 6 2015 (Wichita)

8/10

Words: Alison Mack

Katie Crutchfield, the Waxahatchee named artist - after the Creek of her Alabama hometown - has ventured far since the early days of her 'American Weekend' debut. Now comes 'Ivy Tripp', her third album, and where we see her broadening both view and sound, though still as engaging as when many will have heard the first strains of 'Cerulean Salt'.

“Ivy Tripp is about directionlessness,” she has said in interview, although also staying that the 13 tracks are written more from a subjective point of view, at times it becomes difficult to see the dividing line. “Take what you want/You wear it out/ I’m not trying to be a rose,” she slowly drawls on 'Breathless', over keys and synths on this opening track, in a tone that is one of tiredness. Much of 'Ivy Tripp' follows in a similar pattern, with each track's narrator searchs for some elusive happiness.

'Cerulean Salt' cohorts Keith Spencer and Kyle Gilbride return on 'Ivy Tripp' to co-produce with Crutchfield. Spencer had been her boyfriend as well as her musical collaborator (as producer, and also in side project Great Thunder), but by the end of making this album, the relationship was one that had become solely professional, which makes one wonder how non-personal the writing is. On album standout 'Air', full of fibrous, distant guitar and strident drums, there is a coldness as she talks of a doomed relationship (“We just pretend to be strangers lamenting a means to an end”), but the chorus (“You are patiently giving me everything that I will never need”) suggests more going on here. On the easy and wistful 'Half Moon' she delivers short, abrupt lines (“We fuck up our rhythm/ This idea is a curse/ I invite myself in/ And I think I kissed you first”), each feeling like a knife wound across the piano keys; while the squiggly rock of 'Poison' sees her taking aim with darted words: “What do you want?/What do you need?/A welcome mat?/You get lazy, you get boring.”

It takes someone with talent to pull off sincere, confessional songwriting as well as Crutchfield manages to do. 'Ivy Tripp' is her most accomplished work yet, with a collection of songs that are minimal, but more cohesive and accomplished than previous efforts, centred around her Alabama twanged vocal, and those lyrics, held together with a drum machine beat, distorted guitar line or acoustic guitar. Crutchfield has painted a soundscape that oozes developed maturity and honesty.