© 2024 Boise State Public Radio
NPR in Idaho
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Waxahatchee Announces New Album 'Saint Cloud,' Shares First Single 'Fire'

When Waxahatchee, a.k.a. songwriter Katie Crutchfield, released an EP of spare, folk-tinged songs called Great Thunder in late 2018, it marked a return to an earlier, more stripped-down and intimate sound, following years of increasing scope on the four full-lengths she'd released since 2012. Waxahatchee's fifth album, the just-announced Saint Cloud, seems to be a further return to that impulse: clear-eyed self-reflection with the distortion dialed down.

"Fire," the album's first single, was written on a drive from Memphis into West Memphis, Ark. over the Mississippi River. The song pulses gently under Crutchfield's singular voice; in its video, she's on that same bridge, often singing straight to the camera.

Crutchfield describes the song as a love song to herself; Saint Cloud was written in the period following her decision to get sober, and "Fire" is a testament to what Crutchfield has learned since. "If I can accept that I only have a partial view of the universe, and that I can't know everything or control much of anything," Crutchfield says, "then I can breathe a little easier, take better care of myself, and be closer to my own truth."


Saint Cloud is out March 27 on Merge Records.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

You make stories like this possible.

The biggest portion of Boise State Public Radio's funding comes from readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

Your donation today helps make our local reporting free for our entire community.