Over the last few years, Crutchfield’s marked out a reputation as a tenacious songwriter. It’s nine months since Ivy Tripp came out, and she’s been engaged in a non-stop run of touring. Nevertheless, there are plenty of ideas brewing for the next Waxahatchee record.
“[Touring]’s kind of part of the process now, because I have to tour all the time – pretty much every other year is spent mostly on the road,” she says. “I spent all of 2015 gathering fragments of ideas. I have a lot of down time at the moment. The first thing I do in 2016 is come to Australia, so I have six weeks completely off. I’ve been trying to schedule my days around working on music, at least a little bit every single day. I don’t really know what it’s going to be yet. I made my last two records with the same people and in the same way. I really feel like I’m going to branch out from that this time. But as far as sound and just everything goes, it hasn’t really taken shape yet. I’m really excited to work on it and that’s probably what I’m going to spend most of my year doing.”
Ivy Tripp and Cerulean Salt might’ve been made in much the same way, but Ivy Tripp showed a clear expansion in the scope of Crutchfield’s songwriting as well as the textures and sounds embraced in the studio. Although she’s planning to branch out with the next record, it’s not likely to involve even greater diversity.
“I think if anything I’m going to tone everything back a little bit and make it more minimal,” she says. “I feel like Ivy Tripp added a couple of extra layers sonically and instrumentally, and also the lyrics were more abstract and definitely different from Cerulean Salt and American Weekend. I feel like maybe I’ll explore some of the sounds and instrumentation and lyrics that I used to work with a lot, as far as subject matter goes. I’m not really sure. I’m excited to go off the grid a little bit with my songwriting.
“At the time when I was making Ivy Tripp it felt really natural for me to head in the same direction as Cerulean Salt. Now I’m really ready to go in a totally different direction. I’m just not quite sure yet what that direction is going to be.”
When it comes to developing albums, Crutchfield tends to keep fiddling around with ideas and recording them in some shape or form until it becomes time to knuckle down.
“The more I’ve written songs the pickier I’ve gotten, but also the more meticulous I am about recording everything and writing every single idea down, no matter how much I like it. Just in case, because a lot of songs on Cerulean Salt and Ivy Tripp started out as an idea that I maybe wasn’t crazy about at first, but I came around to or it stuck with me. I’ve been pretty much meticulously recording ideas and writing things down.”
On the subject of having a change of heart towards songs and ideas – after three albums and heck of a lot of touring, Crutchfield’s feelings towards her album material has continued to fluctuate. Of late, she’s felt especial affection for the blatant vulnerability that characterises American Weekend, which could potentially frame album four.
“I actually to a fault have been nostalgic for the time I spent working on my first record. It was just really an emotionally overwrought period of my life, and I think that I was able to get really, really close to my super authentic feelings. I got as close as I was capable of getting. That to me is a victory as a songwriter; getting that close to how I really feel and being able to articulate that. So I’ve been really thinking about that.
“I think that Ivy Tripp was more general. Obviously I still care a lot about that record and I’m proud of it. But the lyrics were more about just general issues that people have, and at times more vague or more abstract.”
They’re two valuable abilities to have – being able to write intimately personal songs that depict one’s deepest feelings, and also being able to write in a more ambiguous and generally applicable way.
“I have this irrational fear that I’m going to stop being able to do that. It’s a fear I’ve had since I started writing songs, that I was going to suddenly wake up and not be able to do it anymore. But I think I’m being too hard on myself.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
