Culture
Talking Lucinda Williams, ‘Great Thunder,’ and Low Fidelity With Katie Crutchfield
By: Emily Votaw
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Katie Crutchfield is the artistic center of Waxahatchee, a musical project that has produced everything from high fidelity rock that dissects dissolving romantic entanglements (2017’s Out In the Storm,) to numerous delectably low-fi, intimate indie pop albums (2012’s American Weekend, 2014’s Cerulean Salt, and 2015’s Ivy Tripp). Cruthfield’s latest offering is more the second than the first — Great Thunder, released earlier this month, is the result of work that Crutchfield did with the now-dormant experimental recording group of the same name while working on Cerulean Salt and Ivy Tripp.
“(Great Thunder) was sort of simultaneous with earlier Waxahatchee albums; as I was recording them, I was doing this other project called Great Thunder,” said Crutchfield in an interview with WOUB Public Media a few days before her performance at Stuart’s Opera House on Thursday, September 13. “It was a collaborative band with my former band mate Keith Spencer; he did the majority of songwriting, but there were a handful of songs I wrote that had faded into obscurity, so I took them and re-recorded and re-imagined them with my friend Brad Cook, who produced the EP.”
Cruthfield describes the album as “stripped down” Waxahatchee songs, making most of their sounds from simply piano and voice.
Listen to WOUB’s entire interview with Crutchfield embedded above.
On September 13, Crutchfield will be joined by Night Shop (Justin Sullivan, drummer for Kevin Morby, Girl Pool, The Babies,) and Anna St. Louis at Stuart’s Opera House for an intimate backstage performance. Tickets are available now at stuartsoperahouse.org.