One year ago, THE WEATHER STATION released Ignorance, one of 2021’s most praised and far-reaching albums. And now, in 2022 Tamara Lindeman is pleased to reveal the swift arrival of its follow-up, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, which will be available on CD, vinyl and digitally on 11th March via Fat Possum.
The album is fronted by the extraordinary lead single and video for: “Endless Time”, which listeners can tune into now:Watch The Weather Station’s Video for “Endless Time”
In support of Ignorance and How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, The Weather Station will embark on a whistle stop tour of the UK & Ireland as part of a wider run of dates worldwide. Kicking off in Brighton on 15th March and closing with a date at the London Scala on 23 March, full dates and details are as follows:
The Weather Station – UK & Ireland Tour Dates
Tue. Mar. 15 – Brighton, UK Komedia
Wed. Mar. 16 – Bristol, UK Thekla
Thu. Mar. 17 – Manchester, UK Gorilla
Fri. Mar. 18 – Dublin, IE The Workman’s Club
Sat. Mar. 19 – Belfast, UK Black Box
Mon. Mar. 21 – Glasgow, UK Mono
Tue. Mar. 22 – Leeds, UK Brudenell Social Club
Wed. Mar. 23 – London, UK Scala
support from Ami Dang
All shows are on sale now here.
New album, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, is intended to be heard as a companion piece to Ignorance. These are songs written at the same time that connect emotionally and deal with many of the same themes: disconnection and conflict, love, birds, and climate feelings. Recorded live in just three days, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars is achingly intimate; full of breath, silence, and detail. As Lindeman explains: “When I wrote Ignorance, it was a time of intense creativity, and I wrote more songs than I ever had in my life. The songs destined to be on the album were clear from the beginning, but as I continued down my writing path, songs kept appearing that had no place on the album I envisioned. Songs that were simple, pure; almost naïve. Songs that spoke to many of the same questions and realities as Ignorance, but in a more internal, thoughtful way.” Lindeman elaborates, “So I began to envision How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, a quiet, strange album of ballads. I imagined it not as a follow up to Ignorance, but rather as a companion piece; the moon to its sun.” Not long after completing Ignorance, Lindeman decided to make this album on her own terms, fronting the money herself and not notifying the labels. She assembled a new band, and communicated a new ethos; the music should feel ungrounded, with space, silence, and sensitivity above all else. On this record, there are no drums, no percussion; in the absence of rhythm, time stretches and becomes elastic. With Christine Bougie on guitar and lap steel, Karen Ng on saxophone and clarinet, Ben Whiteley on upright bass, Ryan Driver on piano, flute, and vocals, and Tania Gill on wurlitzer, rhodes, and pianet, the band comprised some of the best players in the Toronto jazz and improvisation scene. How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars was recorded live off the floor at Toronto’s Canterbury Music Studios from March 10-12, 2020. With Jean Martin co-producing, Lindeman sang and played piano live while the band improvised their accompaniment. When the band entered the studio, Covid-19 was a news item, not front of mind, but just three days later, everything had changed. On today’s “Endless Time,” Lindeman sings about a feeling of unease, interweaving relational loss with anxiety about the impending climate crisis. Lindeman comments:
“In Toronto, I live in a world of overwhelming abundance; fruits and fresh vegetables flown in year round from Chile, California, Malaysia. Standing outside a neighbourhood fruit stand one day, I found myself wondering how I would look back on this time from the future; if I would someday remember it as a time of abundance and wealth I did not fully comprehend at the time, and I wondered how it would feel to stand at that threshold of change. I wondered too if we were not already there. The song was written long before the pandemic, but when we recorded it, on March 11, 2020, it began to feel eerily prescient. The day it was recorded truly was the end of an endless time, and as ever, I don’t know how the song knew.”
Somehow, the music captures that instability; it is ungrounded and diaphanous, it floats and drifts. You might argue that the underlying theme of Ignorance was vulnerability; vulnerability that goes unnoticed and unacknowledged, and the damage that results from that erasure. On How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, this vulnerability is made manifest. It is an album of immense sensitivity, a recording of a band and a person daring to reach towards softness without apology. How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars Tracklist:1. Marsh2. Endless Time3. Taught4. Ignorance5. To Talk About6. Stars7. Song8. Sway9. Sleight of Hand10. Loving You.
THE WEATHER STATION – ‘HOW IS IT THAT I SHOULD LOOK AT THE STARS’- RELEASED ON CD/VINYL/ DIGITALLY – 11 MARCH 2022, VIA FAT POSSUM Pre-order How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars
Photo credit Jeff Bierk
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