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Waxahatchee - grass stain.

The singer/songwriter paradigm is almost always a crap shoot no one wants to fall into. Many try to lay out their emotions over a single acoustic guitar, and nearly everyone fails. Waxhatchee (P.S. Eliot’s Katie Crutchfield) manages to sidestep every “singer / songwriter” pitfall on her debut LP American Weekend. Instead of a sappy, self-pitying mess, Crutchfeild lays out her flaws as if music was her penance. It’s never self-aggrandizing or blaming. “Grass Stain” is such an beautiful bummer, and it was the track that introduced me to Waxahatchee. American Weekend will be out in January on Don Giovanni Records.