Because her lyrics are often the focus, and because the accompanying music could most succinctly be described as “folk,” Tamara Lindeman has a singing voice that is easy to overlook. But it is where much of her power lies. The 36-year-old songwriter and former child actress from Toronto is not the kind of singer who demands your attention but the type who doesn’t seem to care whether you’re listening at all: Dipping between her hushed lower register and a breezy falsetto, her delivery flows as an internal monologue. By listening closely, you are sharing her headspace, invited into a private world. Her songs are anthems for those of us accustomed to spending long stretches of time in silence, or being asked repeatedly “What are you thinking about?”
This introverted style has suited Lindeman’s work as the Weather Station, a project that has evolved over the past decade from sparse solo recordings into an ambitious full band with frequent string accompaniment. In a pivotal song called “Thirty” from 2017’s self-titled album, Lindeman fully assumed the role of bandleader. Without sacrificing the acute, observational detail of her early work, it felt like a breakthrough. Her voice became impossible to ignore. “I noticed fucking everything—the light, the reflections, different languages, your expressions,” she sang with desperate anxiety, as if speeding through her usual landmarks to set a foothold somewhere new.
On Ignorance, the Weather Station’s dazzling fifth album, Lindeman arrives. The sound of her band—which now includes two drummers, a saxophonist, and a watercolor smear of synth, strings, flute, bass, and electric guitar—has never felt more versatile or distinctive, like an array of set pieces she rearranges to accompany each individual story. She sets the scene with “Robber,” the creeping, jazzy opener whose lyrics unveil a stirring metaphor about the failures of capitalism. As the band leans in conspiratorially, responding to each subtle shift in her delivery, Lindeman shapeshifts from consoler (“No, the robber don’t hate you”) to confessor (“When I was young, I learned how to make love to the robber”) to a strange kind of preacher (“Hold open the gates for the want of lust”). It is a whirlwind performance. As the music skitters and bursts in every direction, she never loses her cool.
Co-produced with Marcus Paquin, Ignorance reimagines Lindeman’s place within her own music and the scope of her project as a whole. Every moment feels lush and welcoming, designed to reach as many people as possible. Ironically, Lindeman wrote many of the songs alone with just an old keyboard, playing along to its rudimentary drum loops. In some songs, like “Separated,” you can hear their humble beginnings: the deft, ambling rhythm of her fingerpicking is replaced with pulsing major chords; her lyrics, which once spilled into the margins with asides and scene directions, arrive in pared-down cycles of verse, swapping a few words while maintaining the general structure: “Separated by the relief you want to feel,” she sings, shortly followed by, “Separated by the belief this cut would heal.”