(2021) The Weather Station - Ignorance


Review:
Sometimes we get perception and reality wrong, misunderstanding what we see, hewing to the wrong side of the way things really are, and that duality is at the heart of Ignorance by The Weather Station. The creation of Tamara Lindeman, she takes chances in order to find the connections that will bring life into a better focus. At the same time, she realizes the need to change the way we look at just about everything. Instead of writing the album on guitar, which was her natural instrument, she used a keyboard and came into the studio with arrangements fleshed out on her midi setup, producing the set in a real studio with enough money to be a bit more ambitious. The band was set up in teams. The rhythm section of Kieran Adams and bassist Ben Whiteley played things straight, while percussionist Philippe Melanson, saxophonist Brodie West and Ryan Driver on flute were given the charge of improvising to their heart’s content. Filling out the band were the keys of Johnny Spence and Christine Bougie on guitar. For her part, Lindeman sang, played piano and provided distorted guitar solos. Co-producing with Lindeman and mixing the album was Marcus Paquin. The results of Ignorance are nothing short of magical with the opening of “Robber” developing for close to a minute on a bed of skittering drums, keys and slowly building sax, before Lindeman’s voice gently enters, “I never believed in the robber.” Lindeman explains what she means, “I think it’s hard to believe in the robber hard to even see the robber. It’s easier to try and make love to or glamourize the robber.” She continues, “To put it straight; there are real human people who are literally robbing us and all future generations of everything that matters, right now.” She obviously confronts a lot in her lyrics. Skittering percussion and sax initiate “Atlantic,” where Lindeman lies on a cliff watching the sun set. Yet her visions are not necessarily those you might expect. There’s beauty in the sunset, but there is so much more and it’s a bit frightening, “blood red floods the Atlantic.” She confronts a world that is sometimes more painful that one can imagine. Among the skittering bass and treated keyboards, “Separated” deals with a series of miscommunications, “Separated by the relief you want to feel/ Separated by the belief this cut can heal.” Vulnerable, Lindeman lays things bare on “Heart,” “I don’t have the heart / to conceal my love.” She is equally as vulnerable as the planet she claims to be singing about, and there is nowhere to hide and nothing to hide behind. She stands raw, exposed, the bass and keyboards leave here with nothing to shield her from the pain. While Ignorance is supposed to be an album filled with planetary concerns, there is much that can also be taken on a personal level. It is an album with heart and soul, two commodities that seem to be in short supply these days. The Weather Station may not have all the answers, but Ignorance cannot be an excuse any longer.





Tracklist:
01 - Robber
02 - Atlantic
03 - Tried to Tell You
04 - Parking Lot
05 - Loss
06 - Separated
07 - Wear
08 - Trust
09 - Heart
10 - Subdivisions


Media Report:
Genre: indie-folk
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits