“Right Back To It” – Waxahatchee (featuring MJ Lenderman)

Fingertips

“Right Back To It” – Waxahatchee (featuring MJ Lenderman)

Katie Crutchfield is operating in an impressive groove in recent years; everything she touches strikes me as some version of awesome. Even as she is working with new collaborators–including, as seen here, MJ Lenderman, from the band Wednesday–she sounds as herself as ever on this song from her new album.

The banjo here quickly conveys a country flavor, but the deliberate pace of the finger-picking runs counter to cliched expectations. There will be no hoedown today; the mood is pensive, the melody earnest, alternating between double time and half time, as Crutchfield ponders the forces at work in relationships, albeit allusively, as is her wont. (Like many gifted songwriters, she always gives the impression that she knows exactly what she’s talking about even if the words defy straightforward understanding.) One particularly brilliant line, presented off-handedly, is: I lose a bit of myself/laying out eggshells, which is an eye-opening way to acknowledge one’s own contribution to an unhealthy interpersonal dynamic.

Lenderman’s harmony vocals add poignant texture to the chorus, which resolves–typically a downward movement–via a repeating ascending melody line. This sounds natural on the one hand, but registers as somewhat unusual. Chalk it up to her aforementioned songwriting prowess.

Katie Crutchfield is a solo artist performing since 2010 as Waxahatchee, with a rotating supporting cast. “Right Back To It” is a track from her eagerly awaited new album Tigers Blood, coming out this week on Rough Trade. This is Katie’s first solo album since the brilliant Saint Cloud, a release that arrived, on March 27, 2020, as an oasis of tuneful thoughtfulness in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I leaned on it heavily during the lockdown’s disconcerting first weeks and months, and still revisit it regularly. MP3 via KEXP.

Waxahatchee was previously featured on Fingertips in May 2017.

photo credit: Molly Matalon