Katie had been writing songs since her early teen days and was playing with her sister Allison in the scrappy punk group P.S. Eliot for a while. That group disbanded around the time of a serious breakup, and Crutchfield stole away to her parents' country home where she recorded the songs that would become Waxahatchee's lo-fi debut full-length, 2012's American Weekend. The confessional if somewhat brittle songs on the project's debut gained Waxahatchee more exposure, and Crutchfield began performing in and around Philadelphia, where she had moved. She assembled a band to back her up live, and in 2013, sophomore album Cerulean Salt was released to largely positive critical reviews. The band toured internationally for much of the next year, gaining fans and listeners as its profile grew. In early 2015, it was announced that Waxahatchee had signed to Merge Records for the U.S. release of third album, Ivy Tripp. The album saw release in April of that year. ~ Fred Thomas