The Wall Street Journal - 19.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Thursday, March 19, 2020 |A

MUSIC REVIEW| MARK RICHARDSON

Genuine Hope Balanced

With Clear-Eyed Realism

A record’s surface warmth offers a portal to music of great depth

LIFE & ARTS

ADELA LOCONTE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

CONFINEMENTmakes us more
aware of architecture, if only of
that little sliver of space in which
we find ourselves penned. But so
long as we have the internet we
can be, like Hamlet, “kings of infi-
nite space,” and contemplate all of
architecture at our leisure. Per-
haps this is a good time to recon-
sider the most important architec-
tural story of recent days, the
revelation last month that the gov-
ernment is considering a policy
preferring “the classical architec-
tural style” for federal buildings in
Washington “absent special exten-
uating factors necessitating an-
other style.”
The term “classical architec-
ture” may conjure up a hazy image
of a white marble temple, like the
Parthenon. But there is a world of
difference between the Greek Par-
thenon, the Roman Coliseum, and
the neoclassical Jefferson Memo-
rial, and yet all are classical.
Those wanting to familiarize
themselves with the long history
of classicism might start with
“The Foundations of Classical
Architecture,”a series of four
one-hour videos put out by the In-
stitute of Classical Architecture &
Art (ICAA) and available on You-
Tube. Narrated by the scholar of
architecture Calder Loth, they pro-
ceed in turn through Greek Classi-
cism and Roman Classicism to
Classical Motifs and Details. (Espe-
cially enjoyable is the fourth,
which culminates in an amusing
roster of buildings that violate
Classical Design Principles, such as
the “absurd” Archaeological Mu-
seum of Macedonia, one institu-
tion that should have known bet-
ter than to jumble the Doric and
Ionic orders across its facade.)
Classicism may pervade Ameri-
can civic imagery, from the dome
of the Capitol to your Social Secu-
rity card, but it does not have to
be regal and austere; it can also be
sociable and congenial. The Re-
naissance villas of Andrea Palladio
set a standard for gracious coun-
try life that made them irresistibly
appealing to American builders.
“Palladio: The Architect and His
Influence in America,”a 1980
KAREN BLEIER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGESfilm by the independent filmmaker

not limited to the U.S.; Andreas

Dalsgaard’s“The Human Scale”

(2012), which can be rented from

several sites, makes clear that the

revulsion against modernism, par-

ticularly modern urbanism, is a

world-wide phenomenon. Mr. Dals-

gaard makes his case in 83 min-

utes with a delightful and poignant

roster of international interview-

ees who differ widely in their ar-

chitectural preferences but share a

dismay over the loss of their ver-

nacular heritage, what Christopher

Alexander memorably called “the

timeless way of building.”

“The Human Scale” does not

quite evoke the sheer loathing

with which many view the archi-

tects who have made the contem-

porary city a petri dish for testing

their fashionable theories. For a

John Terry and the Harvard histo-

rian James Ackerman, which is

available on YouTube, offers the

best introduction. (Younger view-

ers will have to adjust to the un-

hurried pace of documentaries

made a generation ago.)

As the controversy over the

proposed federal guidelines inad-

vertently revealed, while much of

the public has no deep feelings ei-

ther way about classical architec-

ture, its feelings about modern ar-

chitecture are surprisingly strong.

It is not that the supporters of

classicism necessarily believe that

Doric columns and pedimented

porticos are eternally valid—al-

though some do—but that they

represent a plausible and humane

alternative to the worst excesses

of modernism. This conviction is

hilarious (but admittedly vulgar)

parody, one should banish the chil-

dren and watch“The Man Behind

the World’s Ugliest Buildings,”

produced by Comedy Central and

available on YouTube. Here Arturo

Castro brings together every sar-

torial affectation of the poseur ar-

chitect—Le Corbusier’s round eye-

glasses, a ponytail and the black

and gray uniform that proclaims

moral seriousness

For a more high-minded medi-

tation on beauty and ugliness, one

should turn to“Why Beauty Mat-

ters,”a documentary narrated by

Roger Scruton and available on

YouTube. Mr. Scruton, the noted

philosopher of aesthetics who

died earlier this year, makes the

case that the pursuit of beauty in

architecture and art is not the

The dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington is just one manifestation of the style known as ‘classical architecture’

IN 2012,singer and songwriter Ka-

tie Crutchfield released “American

Weekend,” the first album by her

project Waxahatchee. It was one of

the year’s best LPs, but it was easy

to miss. Recorded at her parents’s

house near Birmingham, Ala., and

issued on the small New Jersey-

based label Don Giovanni, “Ameri-

can Weekend” was raw, lo-fi and

haunting, a sonic cousin of Bruce

Springsteen’s home-recorded mas-

terpiece “Nebraska.” Where the

latter surveyed the stories of hard-

luck characters trying to get by in

a harsh world, Ms. Crutchfield’s

record was about personal up-

heaval, her cracked vocals cutting

through the hiss and offering

sharp observations from the

then-23-year-old about the rocky

transition to adulthood.

Since “American Weekend,” Ms.

Crutchfield has experimented with

production while her intimate ap-

proach to songwriting has remained

consistent. Her 2013 follow-up, “Ce-

rulean Salt,” was cleanly recorded

and featured a band for the first

time; 2015’s “Ivy Tripp” added syn-

thesizers and vocal processing; and

2017’s “Out in the Storm” was

thicker and noisier, paying homage

to the grunge Ms. Crutchfield lis-

tened to in her youth. Her winding

road as a record-maker has brought

her to the loose, rootsy and coun-

trified “Saint Cloud” (Merge), out

March 27. Working with producer

Brad Cook (who has collaborated

with Bon Iver, William Tyler and

Hiss Golden Messenger, among oth-

ers), she’s found a style perfectly

matched to her songwriting.

Ms. Crutchfield is now 31 years

old. Since her last record, she’s

stopped drinking, and the outlook

on “Saint Cloud” is informed by

her sobriety. While these songs

don’t mention the transformation

specifically, their narrator seems

to take stock, sifting through ques-

tionable assumptions and familiar

patterns to see what’s still true.

It’s a vision that tempers genuine

hope with clear-eyed realism.

Listening to the LP, the first

comparison that comes to mind is

Lucinda Williams, an artist whom

Ms. Crutchfield has identified as a

favorite. Like the best of Ms. Wil-

liams’s work, these tunes feel easy

and lived-in, with earthy melodies

fit for a glass of ice tea on a porch

or a stolen moment alone standing

outside a roadhouse. “I have a gift,

I’ve been told, for seeing what’s

there,” Ms. Crutchfield sings in

“The Eye,” a relaxed acoustic shuf-

fle that’s one of several numbers

about being in love but never sure

it will last, and “Saint Cloud” sug-

gests that the gift is real.

Ms. Crutchfield’s voice has

grown deeper and more command-

ing over the years, and here she

lets her Southern roots inform her

phrasing more than before. We

hear her range on “Can’t Do

Much,” another meditation on fall-

ing for someone but not trusting

your own feelings, in which her

acoustic arrangement is decorated

by electric-guitar jangle. “My eyes

roll around like dice on the felt,”

she offers early on, jumping to her

upper octave for the pleading cho-

rus, “I want you, all the time /

Sanity, nullified.”

Though much of “Saint Cloud”

focuses on the mundane, scanning

everyday items for clues to what

‘Saint Cloud’ is the new album

from singer and songwriter Katie

Crutchfield’s project Waxahatchee

might come next, heavier events

loom at the edges of the frame. On

“Lilacs,” she sees life’s essential

frailty (“And the lilacs drank the

water / And the lilacs died”) while

acknowledging the power of hu-

man connection. Late in the album,

a verse in the song “Arkadelphia”

features the record’s most explicit

mention of Ms. Crutchfield’s sobri-

ety, as she wonders what it means

to rely on substances while making

music (“If I burn out like a light-

bulb / They’ll say she wasn’t meant

for that life”) and then have your

suffering packaged for consump-

tion (“They’ll put it all in a capsule

/ And save it for a dark night”).

This project’s name comes from

Waxahatchee Creek, a waterway in

Alabama near where Ms. Crutch-

field grew up, and her work is dot-

ted with place names

that make the album

feel like a travelogue.

Arkadelphia is a town

in Arkansas (though in

the song it refers to a

road), and it begins

the remarkable trip-

tych that closes the

set, one that works al-

most as a suite. The al-

bum’s more impres-

sionistic imagery gives

way to the concrete,

and death is especially

close. But by writing

about it, Ms. Crutch-

field embraces life.

In “Ruby Falls,” a

spare and aching ballad

with an electric key-

board sketching out a

gospel chord progression, Ms.

Crutchfield lives with worry but ar-

rives at acceptance, taking a devas-

tating turn as she mentions the

possibility of performing a song at

a funeral by the creek that gave her

project its name. And then on the

closing “St. Cloud,” she takes a

chance (“I might show up in a

white dress, turn reluctance on its

ear”), recognizing fear but not giv-

ing in to it. She sings of burning

slowly rather than burning out,

emitting plenty of heat while stick-

ing around for the long haul. It’s an

apt metaphor for this subtle and

deeply affecting record, whose sur-

face warmth and simplicity offer a

portal to music of great depth.

Mr. Richardson is the Journal’s

rock and pop music critic. Follow

him on Twitter @MarkRichardson.

A loose, rootsy and

countrified album deals

with transformation and

sobriety

nostalgic affectation of a connois-

seur; instead it fulfills one of our

most fundamental human needs,

for it “shows human life to be

worthwhile.”

“Why Beauty Matters”is also

the name of a handsomely illus-

trated lecture by Dana Gioia, the

former chairman of the National

Endowment for the Arts, and

available on Vimeo. It is not ex-

plicitly devoted to architecture, al-

though it memorably compares

that embodiment of “cost effi-

ciency and crowd control,” Bos-

ton’s brutalist Government Center,

with “the experience Americans

have walking up the steps of the

Lincoln Memorial.”

The more one learns about

classicism, the more one realizes

that it is not so much a style but

a system of expression, with its

distinctive vocabulary and rules

of grammar, which is why John

Summerson, the celebrated Brit-

ish historian of architecture,

called his great book on the sub-

ject “The Classical Language of

Architecture.” More than sym-

bols, its columns and cornices

were what linguists call mor-

phemes—the smallest elements of

a language that carry meaning.

As with all languages, the expres-

sive range of classicism is limited

only by the imagination of the

speaker, and can be made to pro-

claim great truths, sparkle with

wit, or mouth bland platitudes.

And in the worst cases, of which

there are thankfully few, it can be

used as an instrument of evil.

One might spend a little time

considering the career of Albert

Speer, and view “Hitler’s Hench-

men—Albert Speer: The Archi-

tect” (1996), made by the History

Channel and available on You-

Tube. But first, make sure to re-

serve Roger Scruton’s video as a

palate-cleansing antidote.

Mr. Lewis teaches architectural

history at Williams and reviews

architecture for the Journal.

Editors’ note:“The Staying In-

side Guide” is a new Arts in Re-

view feature in which editors and

critics recommend ways to con-

tinue engaging with arts and cul-

ture during a period of social dis-

tancing.

BYMICHAELJ.LEWIS THE STAYING INSIDE GUIDE—ARCHITECTURE

Discovering Classical Architecture