Weather Station’s work has earned praise for its seamless elegance and fluidity, especially since Tamara Lindemann expanded on the project’s civilian origins in 2021’s Breakout. ignorance. But the Toronto-based singer-songwriter has never focused on the seams, as she does on her intuitive new album. Seams, as she admits in “Sewing,” are a part of life and art that most people try to ignore. humanity. Space for both sophistication and pop grandeur ignorance and its sister album, 2022’s Free-Flowing Intimacy What should I do to see the stars?Lindemann and her remarkable band trace the process of dissociation, revealing the broken pieces and the possibility of reintegrating them, the tremors of truth and all the purposes it serves. humanity Imperfect but enlightening, the music is, as Lindemann puts it, “undulating” and keeps moving, “It’s like this blanket I’m making out of pride and shame, beauty and guilt.”
1. Descent
humanity An impromptu track emerges that serves as both an extended intro to “Neon Signs” and an introduction to the band that energizes the record. Drummer Kieran Adams, keyboardist Ben Boye, percussionist Philip Melancon, and reed and wind specialist Karen. and bassist Ben Whiteley. Tamara Lindemann may bring in other musicians, but she relies on the sextet’s vibrant chemistry to position and shape the record.
2. Neon sign
The atmosphere of “Descent” begins to pulse strong, but rather than being vibrant, Lindemann is bewildered and misguided by a barrage of misinformation and advertising. “All the flashing lights try to fool you,” she sings over dissonant, borderline synth tones, a mesmerizing tangle of instruments that gradually melt into the singer’s dissociative spiral. Lindemann draws a line between the dangers of consumerism and romantic deception, deftly handling her lyricism in a way that only she can. “There is nothing more I can bear than to have my resolve shattered and my refusal to adapt in a world without trust,” she laments, remembering the pain. “I swear to God I’ve only seen true love once.”
3. Mirror
It takes less than half an hour for the band to lock into the record’s tightest, most engaging groove, which is still in danger of falling apart. When the synths and strings wash over the rhythm for a moment, you wonder if it’s smoke or light, something divine or just human. “Everything slips away,” Lindemann reminds us, repeating the sentiment of the previous song. “From the lens of your eye, the unknown silver color recedes again, rises, and returns to you twice its size, as if entering a pool.”
4. Window
Lindemann can’t help but choke up at the dizzying pace of “Window.” “My heart is beating / Like a window / Somewhere opening / To let me out,” she repeats at the beginning, merging the gap between the two. window and open I sigh. Losing the thread between literal and figurative pain, she is unable to touch the ground or carve her way back into her life, groping for the definition of what is coursing through her body. I’m looking for it. “A ribbon waving in the wind, this uncontrollable, static noise in this must-do, unsayable emotion.” It came to her in a poetic flash. She decides that she can’t stay like this, and this song, although short, remains in her heart.
5. Passageway
Quite literally, it’s a passage between “Window” and “Body Moves,” just a minute of shimmering static. You can view it as you exit or enter, depending on your preference.
6. Body movements
Musically, “Body Moves” feels like a soft exhale, but only the kind that precedes a painful confession. Lindemann’s words are harsh and open to obvious truths, even if the objects of desire and the folly of the body are left to the imagination. Stress, fear, numbness – they all created this chaos, this pervasive sense of the end of the world. humanitybut they are accumulated here as a means of explanation and are a thing of the past. Lindemann often writes ambiguous sentences in the first person, you It feels even more personal and damning here. Even if it is to the narrator himself, he is confessing.
7. Ribbon
From this point on, humanity It seems to be getting softer. “Ribbon,” with contributions from Sam Amidon on fiddle and James Elkington on guitar, connects Lindeman’s pain to everything around him, the natural world and the humans who depend on it. She says, “Go straight to the water just to put your hand in it/Feel if it’s cold/Bring it to your mouth and feel the taste of salt/It tingles on your lips like a kiss.” And as we kissed she kept singing What should I do to see the stars?is a kind of balance. It’s certainly normal, but it’s also restrictive.
8. Fluve
The shimmering piano of “Ribbon” loops into another minute-long interlude “Fleuve,” giving the listener the pure sensation of running fingers through water. It’s a reminder of how much of this record comes from improvisation and how beautifully it flows into place.
9. Humanity
If some of the past tracks reflected the feeling of running your hands through water, the title track makes your whole body dive, bringing the record to life. It’s oddly gritty and glitchy, but also oceanic, anchored by Adams’ important drumming as Lindemann sings about carrying the full weight of humanity on one’s shoulders, momentarily weightless, yet burdened by generational responsibilities. The band’s music is often described as ethereal, but ‘Humanhood’ leans toward the clumsiness of navigating a decaying world and endless horrors, trying to squeeze meaning out of words. But I push through it.
10. Irreparable damage
While shuffling king of limbs– Wind Groove, Lindemann samples a phone call with her friend Erin Olstinova. More than just touching on the record’s themes of climate change grief and personal loss, the conversation — or rather at the end of Orsutinova — as Lindemann does lyrically on “Neon Signs” – Go back and forth between the two. What do you do when your body feels like it’s about to break into a million pieces? what can you do? Some songs just fade away, she concluded, and the band lets it sink in before the subject matter shifts to the persistence of wild beauty even in the midst of catastrophe. . There is little distinction between audio recordings and live music, but this just drives home the point.
11. Lonely
The way “Ireversible Disaster” is followed by “Lonely” is striking, matching the way a simple conversation with a friend can suddenly calm the turmoil in your heart. Could this strange emotional tangle, and indeed pain, be nothing but a symptom of loneliness? Melancholy yet thoroughly stripped back, ‘Lonely’ builds on that realization to tell a larger, uniquely pure kind of love story. It’s the kind of thing that unites couples around a common understanding of loneliness, rather than pushing it away. . “It doesn’t solve everything/But I felt so different,” Lindemann sings of not being alone anymore, of feeling the mistrust melting away. It relieves the kind of burden that wouldn’t be possible without the music – at least for Lindemann, and probably for you listening – which is why she went to Transac’s Southern Cross Lounge in her hometown of Toronto to hear her friend perform. I’ll end by saying that I went to “When I hear the song being sung and Tom playing the cacophony, somehow I am reminded of that same knot that was undone.” Lindemann follows it to the end humanity.
12. Aurora
Like the album’s other ambient pieces, the title of this final interlude evokes that atmosphere, but here it lasts just a little longer than on the previous song.
13. Sewing
It’s an honor to be able to listen to “Sewing” at the start of a new year, when all the hallmarks of the old year tend to blur, such as “aimless days, bad moods, and unfamiliar changes.” For Lindemann, it serves as a metaphor for her own creative practice and the urge to strip away the truth, its messy core, especially in the final parts of the process. But just as a blinding light washed everything away, her voice returned, unchanged. Rarely has a sound been so fragile, the drums are somehow as gentle and expressive as the piano, and the blanket of synths is crucial to tying everything together. As if humanity itself, based on an inexplicable and incomplete vision, submitted to the simplest pleasures and devoted itself to knowing them deeply. Basically, I think we’re going to have an adventure together.
Source: Our Culture – ourculturemag.com
