ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
February 7, 2021
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Let's be honest here. As a music makin' month, January hasn't really kept up its side of the deal. Sure, we can blame the plague-demic, and February arrives with a degree of promise. But every month we try to find something to hold onto, something to champion as the best the last 31 days have had to offer. In order of appearance:
WHAT's SO GREAT ABOUT JANUARY?!!
Steve Earle, JT (New West, Jan 4)
Buck Meek, Two Saviors (Keeled Scales, Jan 15)
Lucero, When You Found Me (Liberty & Lament, Jan 29)
Pony Bradshaw, Calico Jim (Black Mt, Jan 29)
Langhorne Slim, Strawberry Mansion (Dualtone, Jan 29)
Tamara Lindeman is Weather Station. It's a regrettable name for a singer-songwriter, not to mention a challenging one to google. The Canadian's work under the Weather Station moniker effectively began with 2011's All of It Was Mine, produced by Daniel Romano. Lindeman accompanied herself on banjo or guitar, with only select other instruments deployed in support. Following an EP that added more atmospherics to her mix, Weather Station began a process of musical evolution with 2015's Loyalty. By the time of 2017's self-titled sessions, Tamara Lindeman had largely fleshed out her early folk sound, working alongside artists like Nathan Salsburg and Bahamas' Afie Jurvanen in addition to abandoning herself to a more confident, freewheeling approach to her vocals.
I suppose it might come as a surprise that Lindeman's new project is Weather Station's first dedicated to the issues of climate change. Ignorance doesn't preach or proselytize or point fingers; it's not a document of the destruction of our planet. The songs instead explore the emotional consequence of the global crisis, the fallout from our fall-apart. As a lyricist she is skilled to the point that we never once are prompted to picture a sad-eyed seal wandering in search of a more suitable habitat.
In many ways, it's difficult to imagine what we hear on Ignorance is an evolution of the timid-voiced songstress of those earlier Weather Station records. There are skittering beats throughout the collection, rhythms that belie the cool nature of Lindeman's jazz-shaped arrangements. These aren't Charlie XCX dancefloor bangers, but listeners could dance to songs like "Parking Lot" if they were so inclined. With its subtle bass pulse, the tune bears quiet witness to the flight of a bird, emotions rising and falling in time with its wings: It felt intimate to watch it she sings, It's small chest rising and falling / As it sang the same song over and over again / Over the traffic and the noise.
Ignorance is a beautiful album, seeming both distantly cool and unbearably intimate. Composed on piano, the arrangements breathe and sigh with woodwinds and strings, familiar bass and guitar playing a largely supportive role. Ticking percussion trips beneath "Robber", a dark song punctuated with dramatic bursts of strings. Appropriate for a nature-oriented collection, these are organic sounds - flutes fluttering like reeling shearwaters on "Atlantic" as the singer questions her obligation to acknowledge what she knows to be true: I should really know better than to read the headlines / Does it matter if I see it? / Why can't I just cover my eyes? Lindeman answers her own question on the racing "Heart": Of all the things that you may ask of me / Don't ask me for indifference / Don't come to me for distance.
Tamara Lindeman's low-registered voice has always been intriguing, and on this fifth album she invests more in her range both musically and emotionally. That voice swells and sighs with the strings on the mournful "Trust": This is the end of love ... the end of trust. She takes inventory of what's at risk: The bodies of the common birds / Robins and crows and thrushes / Everything that I have loved. On "Separated" the accounting takes stock of the effect of the climate crisis on the very connection that holds our societies together. "Subdivisions" closes this doomsday clock of an LP gorgeously, with Lindeman sounding like she's emerging from a reverie, her delivery like a more grounded Kate Bush.
There are no answers on Ignorance. Instead these restless songs arrive as dispatches from Weather Station's poetic wanderings. She is as tangled in the wild as Neko Case, as intuitive as Fiona Apple. On "Tried to Tell You" Lindeman sings: I feel as useless as a tree in a city park / Standing as a symbol of what we have blown apart. Ignorance bears simultaneous witness to the threat to both the wild of our world and of our psyche. With its electric arrangements and the power of Lindeman's artistry, the album should lift Weather Station to the prominence of Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers.
- Lorenzo Wolff, "The Pearl (feat. Bartees Strange)" Down Where the Valleys Are Low: Another Otherworld for Judee Sill (StorySound, Mar 12) D
- Lucero, "Coffin Nails" When You Found Me (Liberty & Lament, 21)
- Morgan Wade, "Wilder Days" Reckless (Ladylike, Mar 19) D
- Dead South, "Black Lung (live)" Served Live (Six Shooter, 21)
- Have Gun Will Travel, "Trouble" Raw Materials: Home Demos (Burke, 20)
- Luke Bell, "Jealous Guy" single (Bill Hill, 21) D
- Roger Harvey, "What a Weird Hill to Die On" single (Lion's Tooth, 21) D
- Courtney Patton, "Alabama" The Years: MusicFest Tribute to Cody Canada (Right Ave, 21)
- Robbie Fulks, "Georgia Hard" Georgia Hard (Yep Roc, 05)
- Esther Rose, "Keeps Me Running" How Many Times (Father/Daughter, Mar 26) D
- Langhorne Slim, "Dreams" Strawberry Mansion (Dualtone, 21)
- Bill Mackay & Nathan Bowles, "Joyride" Keys (Drag City, Apr 9) D
- Corb Lund, "One Left in the Chamber (acoustic)" Cabin Fever (deluxe) (New West, 21)
- Ian Noe, "Loving You" Between the Country (Natl Treasury, 19)
- Shovels & Rope, "In My Room (feat. Sharon Van Etten)" Busted Jukebox Vol 3 (Dualtone, Feb 5) D
- Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, "Hole in One" I Told You So (Colemine, 21) D
- Jim Keller, "Find My Shadow" By No Means (Orange Mt, Feb 12)
- War on Drugs, "Eyes to the Wind" Lost in the Dream (Secretly Canadian, 14)
- Craig Finn, "Calvary Court" All These Perfect Crosses (Partisan, Feb 26)
- Dr Dog, "Under the Wheels (live)" Live 2 (We Buy Gold, 21)
- Pony Bradshaw, "Foxfire" Calico Jim (Black Mt, 21)
- Hailey Whitters, "Glad to Be Here (feat. Brent Cobb)" Living the Dream (Pigasus, Feb 26)
- James McMurtry, "Fight (Tonight's the Night)" Man of Somebody's Dreams: Tribute to Chris Gaffney (Yep Roc, 09)
- Lia Ices, "Hymn" Family Album (Natural, 21) D
- Buck Meek, "Pocketknife" Two Saviors (Keeled Scales, 21)
- James Charles Dwyer, "Shame (feat. Jessica Lea Mayfield)" Junebug (Bitter Melody, 21) D
- Son Volt, "Cemetery Savior" Straightaways (Warner, 97)
- Hold Steady, "Spices" Open Door Policy (Positive Jams, Feb 19)
- Lucinda Williams, "Blue" Essence (UMG, 01)
- Sara Watkins, "Pure Imagination" The Pepper Tree (New West, Mar 26) D
A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster tracks new and forthcoming releases for our kind of music. While we've come across no release date, we've learned that Hiss Golden Messenger's next project will be called Quietly Blowing It. Originally a 2020 Record Store Day release, Craig Finn's All These Perfect Crosses will see the light of day for the rest of us on February 26. Released by Partisan Records, the LP collects outtakes from the Hold Steady frontman's solo work. Seven years since her last solo project, Brigitte DeMeyer returns with Seeker on March 26. From Athens, Georgia, New Madrid promise their new self-titled record on April 30 via their new Lemonade label.
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