Following on from her 2021 album Ignorance and 2022’s accompanying piece How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, The Weather Station, the project of Toronto-based Tamara Lindeman, announces her new album Humanhood, out January 17th via Fat Possum.
When we spoke with Lindeman in 2022, she imagined her next album would probably be more in keeping with the spirit and musical direction of Ignorance.
“How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars is an extra thing, I still don’t see it as the next move, you know? My next move will be more full, more embodied; it’ll be another big record.
“But I can imagine myself succumbing to the temptation, every time I make a new record, to make the other little ghost record in addition, because it’s like a palette cleanser after you’ve worked so hard on a mix and master that’s so complete, and to then just do something else.”
On first listen to her opening track, Neon Sign, you do detect a tangible emotional weight behind it, not just vocally, but also musically, as if everyone involved is emotionally tied to it. The press reveals that the songs were left open; Lindeman and co-producer Marcus Paquin wanted to hear the sudden sparks made by these new encounters, to witness everyone react in real-time to the songs and sketches she supplied. This does feel like the big record she spoke of in 2022, but in a very different way, something that is also touched on in the press–Despite 2022 appearing to be a year of glory, she was also struggling with a mental health crisis. Working through a crisis of meaning, she wrote from within the confusion of the experience to create the songs that would ultimately become Humanhood, a narrative album that, listened to front to back, transcribes the journey from dissociation back towards connection.
“Neon Signs”, the opening song on Humanhood reflects upon the confusion and conflict of living in such a fractious world, “Why can’t I get off this floor? Think straight anymore?”
“I wrote “Neon Signs” at a moment of feeling confused, upside down, at that moment when even desire falls away, and dissociation cuts you loose from a story that while wrong, still held things together,” Lindeman explains. “The song came with multiple strands entwined; the way that something that is not true seems to have more energetic intensity than something that is, the confusion of being bombarded with advertising at a moment of climate emergency, the confusion of relationships where coercion is wrapped in the language of love. Ultimately though, isn’t it all the same feeling?”
The “Neon Signs” video, directed by Directed by Lindeman & Jared Raab, is a journey through different sets of eyes, perpetually shifting perspectives between people and objects.
“But nothing needs you so badly as a lie, so lonely, drifting, unmoored from real life – if nobody believes it all it can do is die.“
Humanhood Tracklist
1. Descent
2. Neon Signs
3. Mirror
4. Window
5. Passage
6. Body Moves
7. Ribbon
8. Fleuve
9. Humanhood
10. Irreversible Damage
11. Lonely
12. Aurora
13. Sewing
The Weather Station will tour Europe and the UK early next year.
The Weather Station Tour Dates
Wed. Feb. 26 – Hamburg, DE @ Nochtspeicher
Thu. Feb. 27 – Copenhagen, DK @ DR Studie 2
Fri. Feb. 28 – Berlin, DE @ Silent Green
Sun. Mar. 2 – Amsterdam, NL @ Tolhuistuin
Mon. Mar. 3 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique / Museum
Tue. Mar. 4 – Paris, FR @ Point Ephemere
Thu. Mar. 6 – Brighton, UK @ CHALK
Fri. Mar. 7 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
Sat. Mar. 8 – Dublin, IE @ Button Factory
Mon. Mar. 10 – Glasgow, UK @ Saint Luke’s
Tue. Mar. 11 – Manchester, UK @ Band On The Wall
Wed. Mar. 12 – Bristol, UK @ The Fleece
Thu. Mar. 13 – London, UK @ Islington Assembly Hall