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đ SOLD OUT! Join the waitlist â https://www.tixr.com/groups/impactconcerts/events/waxahatchee-tim-heidecker-snail-mail-91311Gates 4:30pm / Show 5:30pm / End 9:30pm
WAXAHATCHEE
One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, sheâs never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullersâs Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.
And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas Cityâafter years of sacrificing herself to her work and the roadâCrutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album, Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouseâan ethnologist of the selfâforever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now sheâs arriving at revelations and she ainât holding them back.
Crutchfield says that she wrote most of the songs on âTigers Bloodâ during a âhot hand spell,â while on tour in the end of 2022. And when it came time to record, Crutchfield returned to her trusted producer Brad Cook, who brought her sound to a groundbreaking turning point on 2020âs Saint Cloud.
They hunkered down at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texasâa border town known for cotton and pecansâand searched for another turn, waited for a sign. Initially, MJ Lenderman, Southern indie-rock wunderkind (much like Crutchfield when she started out) came to play electric guitar and sing on âRight Back To It.â But as soon as they tracked it, Cook told Lenderman he had to stay for the rest of the album. And he did.
âRight Back To Itâ is âTigers Bloodââs lead single. A nod to country duets like Gram and Emmylou, winding over a steadfast banjo from Phil Cook. Together, Crutchfield and Lenderman harmonize on the chorus: âIâve been yours for so long/We come right back to it/I let my mind run wild/Donât know why I do it/But you just settle in/Like a song with no end.â Crutchfield says itâs the first real love song sheâs ever written.
The song âBoredâ opens with blase drum beats from Spencer Tweedy that crash under Crutchfield as she throws her voice high: âI can get along/ My spineâs a rotted two by four/Barely hanging on/My benevolence just hits the floor.â Lendermanâs scuzzy riffs and Nick Bockrathâs climbing pedal steel add power to the albumâs most âSouthern Rockâ a la Drive-By Truckers moment.
â365â is a story of recognition told from a hard-won place of self-acceptance/forgiveness. Crutchfield initially started writing it for Wynonna Judd, with whom she has written and performed in the past, until the lyrics started hitting closer and closer to home. The writer Annie Ernaux says, âwriting is to fight forgetting.â Like Lucinda Williams, Crutchfieldâs lyrics are memoir. Throughout âTigers Bloodâ Crutchfield is addressing a âyou,â but the âyouâ in â365â evokes raw closeness, vulnerability. âYa ainât had much luck but grace is/In the eye of the beholder/And I had my own ideas but/I carried you on my shoulders, anyways.â ��â365â is essentially âTigers Bloodââs aria about addiction, with little to no accompaniment to Crutchfieldâs voice. Her backing band is hushed, as if the spotlightâs coming down on her, alone on the stage, giving her testimony. Crutchfield slings her voice with arresting precision, reaching its highest harmony on the whole album. âSo when you K*ll, I K*ll/And when you ache, I ache/And we both haunt this old lifeless town/And when you fail, I fail/ When you fly, I fly/And itâs a long way to come back down.â
â365â circles back to the beginning of âTigers Blood,â where Crutchfieldâs words ring clear as a bell. Album opener â3 Sistersâ starts with Crutchfield singing over hymn-like piano chords: âI pick you up inside a hopeless prayer/I see you beholden to nothing/I make a living crying it ainât fair/And not budging.â âTigers Bloodâ is Crutchfield at her most confident and resilient. Staring straight at the truth, forgiving but not forgetting, not batting an eye. ďż˝
â Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
TIM HEIDECKER
Best known for his work as a comedian, writer, and actor, Tim Heidecker is also an accomplished musician and songwriter whose tunes don't necessarily have to rely upon humor to succeed. While he had played in bands since the '90s, Heidecker's music first began winning a large audience when some of his tunes appeared on Awesome Show, Great Job, the TV series he created with creative partner Eric Wareheim, and his work appeared on two albums of music from the show. Heidecker's love of '70s soft rock found an outlet on a pair of albums he made with Awesome Show composer Davin Wood, 2011's Starting from Nowhere and 2013's Some Things Never Stay the Same. Barbed political satire informed 2017's Too Dumb for Suicide: Tim Heidecker's Trump Songs, while his fascination with vintage pop grew on 2019's What the Brokenhearted Do and 2022âs High School.
SNAIL MAIL
On her 2018 debut album Lush, seventeen-year-old Lindsey Jordan sang âIâm in full control / Iâm not lost / Even when itâs love / Even when itâs notâ. Her natural ability to be many things at once resonated with a lot of people. The contradiction of confidence and vulnerability, power and delicacy, had the impact of a wrecking ball when put to tape. It was an impressive and unequivocal career-making moment for Jordan.
On Valentine, her sophomore album out November 5th on Matador, Lindsey solidifies and defines this trajectory in a blaze of glory. In 10 songs, written over 2019-2020 by Jordan alone, we are taken on an adrenalizing odyssey of genuine originality in an era in which âindieâ music has been reduced to gentle, homogenous pop composed mostly by ghost writers. Made with careful precision, Valentine shows an artist who has chosen to take her time. The reference points are broad and psychically stirring, while the lyrics build masterfully on the foundation set by Jordanâs first record to deliver a deeper understanding of heartbreak.
On âBen Franklinâ, the second single of the album, Jordan sings âMoved on, but nothing feels true / Sometimes I hate her just for not being you / Post rehab Iâve been feeling so small / I miss your attention, I wish I could callâ. Itâs here that she mourns a lost love, conceding the true nature of a fleeting romantic tie-up and ultimately, referencing a stay in a recovery facility in Arizona. This 45-day interlude followed issues stemming from a young life colliding with sudden fame and success. Since she was not allowed to bring her instruments or recording equipment, Jordan began tabulating the new album arrangements on paper solely out of memory and imagination. It was after this choice to take radical action that Valentine really took its unique shape.
Jordan took her newfound sense of clarity and calm to Durham, North Carolina, along with the bones of a new album. Here she worked with Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee). For all the albumâs vastness and gravity, it was in this small home studio that Jordan and Cook chipped away over the winter of early 2021 at co-producing a dynamic collection of genre-melding new songs, finishing it triumphantly in the spring. They were assisted by longtime bandmates Ray Brown and Alex Bass, as well as engineer Alex Farrar, with a live string section added later at Spacebomb Studios in Richmond.
Leaning more heavily into samples and synthesizers, the album hinges on a handful of remarkably untraditional pop songs. The first few seconds of opener and title track âValentineâ see whispered voice and eerie sci-fi synth erupt into a stadium-sized, endorphin-rush of a chorus that is an overwhelming statement of intent. âBen Franklinâ, âForever (Sailing)â and âMadonnaâ take imaginative routes to the highest peaks of catchiness. Jordan has always sung with a depth of intensity and conviction, and the climactic pop moments on Valentine are delivered with such a tenet and a darkness and a beauty thatâs noisy and guttural, taking on the singularity that usually comes from a veteran artist.
As captivating as the synth-driven songs are, itâs the more delicate moments like âLight Blueâ, âc.et. al.â and âMiaâ that distill the albums range and depth. âBaby blue, Iâm so behind / Canât make sense of the faces in and out of my life / Whirling above our daily routines / Both buried in problems, baby, honestlyâ Jordan sings on âc. et. al.â with a devastating certainty. These more ethereal, dextrously finger-picked folk songs peppered in throughout the album are nuanced in their vocal delivery and confident in their intricate arrangement. They come in like a breath of air, a moment to let the mind wander, but quickly drown the listener in their melodic alchemy and lyrical punch.
The album is rounded out radiantly by guitar-driven rock songs like âAutomateâ, âGloryâ and âHeadlockâ. Reminiscent of Lush but with a marked tonal shift, Jordan again shows her prowess as a guitar player with chorus-y leads and rhythmic, wall-of-sound riffs. âHeadlockâ highlights this pivot with high-pitched dissonance and celestially affected lead parts â âCanât go out Iâm tethered to / Another world where weâre together / Are you lost in it too?â, she sings with grit and fatigue, building so poignantly on her sturdy foundation of out-and-out melancholy. On Valentine, we are taken 100 miles deeper into the world Jordan created with Lush, led through passageways and around dark corners, landing somewhere we never dreamed existed.
Today, in the wake of recording Valentine, Jordan is focused on trying to continue healing without slowing down. The album comes in the midst of so much growth, in the fertile soil of a harrowing bottom-out. On the heels of life-altering success, a painful breakup and 6 weeks in treatment, Jordan appears vibrant and sharp. âMia, donât cry / I love you forever / But I gotta grow up now / No I canât keep holding onto you anymoreâ she sings on the album closer âMiaâ. She sings softly but her voice cuts through like a hacksaw. The song is lamenting a lost love, saying a somber goodbye, and it closes the door on a bitter cold season for Jordan. Leaving room for a long and storied path, Valentine is somehow a jolt and a lovebuzz all at once.
- Katie Crutchfield
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Arrowood Farms, Lower Whitfield Road,Accord,NY,United States
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