You can lump the two acts on this bill — Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee — under the indie rock label, but it doesn’t quite do either of the artists justice, nor does it suggest how different they are from each other.
Morby, who played with the band Woods for a while, went solo and revealed a real kinship with Leonard Cohen. Morby has a weight to his voice and a way of enunciating and stressing a phrase that brings to mind recently deceased zen-minded Canadian poet and folk singer. You might hear 21st-century echoes of “Blonde On Blonde” era Dylan. Morby’s music is also haunted by place. His 2016 record “Singing Saw” is infused with an arid southern California feel, while his 2013 solo debut, “Harlem River,” conjures the urban dislocation and aloofness of New York City, where parts of it took shape.
Waxahatchee is the name that Alabama-born singer and songwriter Katie Crutchfield gives to her work. Sometimes it’s a band, sometimes it’s just her. Crutchfield sometimes sounds like she’s brooding, but she pushes her vocal melodies into places that would suggest otherwise. Crutchfield’s songs have a bracing emotional and musical force. If Morby brings to mind suave late-’60s folk bards, Crutchfield sounds like she has a direct connection to ’90s rockers like Liz Phair and Belly.
Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee at the Ballroom perform at the Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden, Wednesday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20. 203-288-6400, thespacect.com.
