I was given this track to feature earlier today and I’ll be honest, to say I was completely blown away by it is an understatement. The song ‘Way It Is, Way It Could Be‘ is by The Weather Station, the musical project of Toronto artist Tamara Lindeman whose sublime vocals were part of the equation that knocked me over. The other is the band which turns out to include members of Feist’s band. In short, I think this is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard this year. It features on the forthcoming album Loyalty released on Paradise of bachelors May 12, 2015.
Of the album title Tamara says “The record was called Loyalty from the beginning – it was the first decision I made about it. It’s a word you usually see written in copperplate script, a virtue: LOYALTY. But the songs don’t treat it that way, just as a thing to unpack. It’s a force that you have to reckon with: loyalty to the dream, to the “work,” to the mythical idea of “you” that somebody thought they saw. It can be a weakness as much as a strength; it can keep you from the reality of your own life, your own self.”
Recorded at La Frette Studios just outside Paris in the winter of 2014, in close collaboration with Afie Jurvanen (Bahamas) and Robbie Lackritz (Feist), Loyalty crystallizes her lapidary songcraft into eleven emotionally charged vignettes and intimate portraits, redolent of fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and David Wiffen, but utterly her own.
