By Kirsten Hammermeister
The name Waxahatchee comes from the Alabama creek where Katie Crutchfield sat by its dock and wrote the songs that would form her debut album American Weekend in 2012. 4 years later and an album in between, Cerulean Salt (2013), Crutchfield released her third album Ivy Tripp on this day, 10 years ago – April 7 2015.
Ivy Tripp saw Waxahatchee return to some of her roots with acoustic folk, breathy, dream-like vocals and introspective lyrics of her debut album American Weekend. Her sophomore album was nostalgic of ‘90s indie and slowly edged its way to a heavier rockier sound. In Ivy Tripp, Waxahatchee’s first two albums seem like the ground on which the sounds of Ivy Tripp are layered upon. Ivy Tripp feels angrier, contemplative. It feels like Waxahatchee has a deeper confidence and aching in her singing and lyricism with a roughness to the touch. Crutchfield remarked at the time, “The title Ivy Tripp is really just a term I made up for directionless-ness, specifically of the 20-something, 30-something, 40-something of today, lacking regard for the complaisant life path of our parents and grandparents."
In an interview with Spin, she said that the record was “poppier” and “that was the goal”. It’s true, the synths, keyboards and 12-string guitars move away from the acoustic beginnings of Waxahatchee but they also add to the atmospheric quality of her sound, it feels like a fuller, more rounded concept of the soft folk that defined American Weekend.
The album was well-received at the time, boasting many 8/10 & 4 star reviews across professional music ratings. Pitchfork writer Brandon Stosuy wrote, "many of Ivy Tripp's song titles—'The Dirt', 'Half Moon', 'Bonfire'—are dusky and colored like earth tones, and that's the setting of the songs as well: moments in transition, the realm between night and day and relationships that have that same kind of momentary feeling."
The highlight of the album for me is the opening track 'Breathless’. The song feels like the anxiety that grows quietly but viciously as you recognise the failing of a relationship. The keys feel reminiscent of a church organ, underlaying the song in kind of prayer, to leave or to stay, or to just stop this feeling that is festering? Crutchfield evokes the struggles of chasing a relationship that is not worth it, of being seen as an image of yourself but not who you truly are. In the conclusion of the song, she moves between action and inaction. She takes agency in her decision to not give herself away to this relationship, “I’m not trying to be yours”. Yet still, she entraps herself in the pretence of a relationship that could work but won’t, “you indulge me, I indulge you / but I’m not trying to have it all.”
Waxatchee has since gone on to release five albums since Ivy Tripp – Out in the Storm (2017), Saint Cloud (2020), a collaborative album with Plains and Jess Williamson I Walked With You A Ways (2022) and Tiger’s Blood (2024). She has also released a number of singles, an EP and a soundtrack for Apple TV original series El Deafo. She’s continued to be a powerhouse in the industry and has continued to strengthen her sound with each album.
Criticism around Ivy Tripp regards the record as feeling at times disjointed and Crutchfield herself told Uproxx in 2024 that in an attempt to mask the simplicity of her songs on that album, “we would throw all kinds of stuff on it just to make it weird.” The album was written when she was in a complicated relationship with someone who she was also making the album with. The feelings of uncertainty drip off each word in Ivy Tripp.
If it has been a while since you put on the album, give it another spin. You’ll sense the world that Waxahatchee worked to create in all its messy, confessional glory and even if you agree that it’s not her best, there’s a comfort in witnessing Crutchfield work out her sound, her voice, her life that we can still resonate with 10 years on.