The world got a very cool surprise on Friday, one that was entirely unrelated to Halloween. Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield once again teamed up with her twin sister and former P.S. Eliot bandmate Allison. They formed an entirely new band called Snocaps, in which they were backed up by MJ Lenderman and indie mega-producer Brad Cook, and they surprise-released their entire self-titled debut album after just a couple of teasers. Guess what! It fucking rules! Now, Snocaps are getting ready to play their first live shows.
Later this year, Snocaps will play a grand total of six live shows -- two in Chicago, two in Los Angeles, two in New York. They'll have a different opener at each of those shows. If you can't make it to any of them, you might be shit out of luck. The Crutchfield sisters will presumably work together again on new music whenever they feel like it, but this series of shows appears to be all they've got planned. According to a press release, the sisters plan to "put the project on ice for the foreseeable future" after those gigs. All the principal figures are awfully busy, so this represents a rare opportunity to hear the Crutchfield sisters singing the raw, heartfelt indie music that brought them into the game. Below, check out the dates and the heartfelt post-release messages from both Crutchfield sisters.
TOUR DATES:
12/01 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall (with Cloakroom)
12/02 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall (with Graham Hunt)
12/04 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (with Slippers)
12/05 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (with Mike Krol)
12/07 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (with Brennan Wedl)
12/08 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (with Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band)
On her Substack, Katie Crutchfield writes:
Good morning from California, where I’m writing to you from LAX, about to head off to KC to see Kevin and my dogs, perform at Thundergong and try to soak in some autumnal essence before the winter takes the reigns. I’m speaking to you from the past as I occasionally do in this newsletter, fresh off some dates with one of my earliest favorite bands Rilo Kiley. That experience was so sweet and full circle and someday I’ll go into deeper detail but today I have other news I’m going to turn my attention to. Today my new band Snocaps is releasing our first album Snocaps and I am thrilled for you to finally hear it. About 2 years ago my sister Allison and I started discussing the possibility of making music together again. Some of you know my history and I am sure some of you don’t. My twin sister Allison and I started learning to play music together when we were about 14. We had many bands together over the years, contributed a lot to each other’s solo endeavors and she’s still very involved in my career now. Allison put her music-making on pause a few years back and currently has an amazing career working on the other side of the music business as an A&R at Anti- but she had been dreaming of a return to form. Some time in early 2024 we found ourselves on opposite sides of some strange spectrum of output. I was feeling fatigued by my own voice and ideas. She herself hadn’t made any music in years and was living with a lot of creative frustration. We circled around the idea of making something akin to what we made when we were younger. When we were in our early 20s we started a band, wrote and made an album all in one week, just the two of us, and we uploaded and shared it as soon as we were finished. We longed for that type of experience again, to make something with no ambitions and no plan, purely for our own enjoyment, for the experience of making something we ourselves wanted to hear. We started collecting and writing songs early this year and by March had 12 ready to go. In April we brought in my two most trusted collaborators Brad Cook and MJ Lenderman and together, the 4 of us made this album in Brad’s home studio over the course of a week. Every aspect of this project has felt nostalgic in a sense that it felt direct and joyful and easy. Allison and I synced up on a shared vision for the first time in forever, starting a band with our dear friends, keeping it all simple, realigning with the earliest, purest versions of our music-making selves. There is so much more to say and in time I will say it all. My experience of Snocaps has been exactly what I needed to stay close to whatever artistic spirit lives within me and keeps me moving forward. For now I’ll just say that I hope the album brings you some joy. It brought us all a lot of joy to make it.
In another Substack post, Katie Crutchfield had more to say about this brief run of shows:
When we first started talking about taking this show on the road we very intentionally chose the venues, the cities, the support bands and I can say now that Allison and I have rather meticulously discussed the setlist as well. It’s beautiful to see it all coming to fruition and it’s feeling really warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. The old is feeling new, the songs I wrote when I was 19 that once cringed me out way too much to revisit are sounding fresh and sweet and good again. So all of that is to say, yes, we will be playing some P.S. Eliot songs. Yes, we will be playing some Swearin’ and AC solo songs. Yes, we will be playing some Waxahatchee songs from the first 4 albums. No, we will not play anything from the last 5 years aside from the entire Snocaps album. I say that to excite you, to answer some questions you may have as you decide whether or not to buy a ticket.
And here's what Allison Crutchfield had to say about making the LP on Instagram:
Snocaps is out now on ANTI-.
