The Weather Station

All Of It Was Mine, the second album by The Weather Station the band led by songwriter Tamara Lindeman, was not a natural birth. Whilst her first album, the dark and wandering tales that comprised The Line, was a straightforward and easy process, the follow-up didn’t want to come. Sessions were made and discounted, Linderman acknowledging that she was trying too hard to coax the songs and arrangements out of her head. A change of scenery and stripping back the process of writing and recording revealed a more open and authentic set of songs. Suddenly they took shape naturally and without force.

Linderman’s take on folk music bares the same hallmarks as Gillian Welch’s. Returning to the roots of the music and its simple and humble beginnings allows the rawness and trueness of the songs to shine through. There’s nowhere for the songs to hide – the lyrics aren’t hidden in layers upon layers of instruments and fancy production. These songs were recorded in a homemade studio, the majority straight to an 8-track recorder, and with harmonies added live as and when they were required. Listening to music like this can almost be like looking through a window directly into the songwriter’s life. The simpler the music is, the better the reflection of the inherent issues and ideals of the writer – there’s an authenticity and realness to its simplicity. An honesty that can easily be lost amidst the noise.

‘Everything I Saw’ starts the album as it means to go on. The gracious sound of banjo and acoustic guitar flowing gently over Linderman’s swooning delivery. Her voice an effortless lilt in which you can lose yourself. Each word spilt in a knowing and controlled manner. The warm sounds of acoustic guitars accompany a more whispered approach from Linderman on ‘Came So Easy’. This song is a recounting of the evolution of her song-writing: “Just ‘cos it came so easy I was loathed to admit it”, an admission that not everything needs to be forced to be right. ‘Came So Easy’ is the build up to this album distilled into one song, woven between random snippets of observation. This spills into ‘Traveller’ as Linderman’s observations form the backbone for a modern spin on the folk standard of changing times – walking through her home town, “Seeing it all for the first time, like a guest, unsure of what I will find” – tallying up what’s been lost against what’s been gained: it’s no longer a simple equation. ‘Nobody’ features a creaking electric guitar that sounds like something T-Bone Burnett would use, a rustic charm that acts as a counterpoint to Linderman’s smooth vocals.

The album now spins some tales. ‘Know It To See It’ feels like an anthem for escapism – the spinning wheels of a car directly spurring on the guitar before it breaks down into a swamp-like country roll, a rare drum and electric guitar appear, joining the band of escapees: “Take your bag get in the car, get in the car, and drive it somewhere quiet”. A haunting violin joins the fray on ‘Yarrow and Mint’, a lament to the lost voices and culture of the Deep South. A very modern re-telling of a William Faulkner story perhaps? It bristles with an intensity and a fear – a willingness to make sense of a wronged community.

We return to Linderman’s more personal approach on the final song, the open hearted lament of ‘If You’ve Been Fooled’. It’s a naked recounting of misplaced trust and a love that was not based on truth: “And If I’ve been fooled it was not by you, but by a story with the ring of truth”. It’s strangely apt that the record should end on this negative side. It shows that, whilst life doesn’t always go according to plan, you can turn it around and use it to your advantage. All Of It Was Mine was born out of frustration and of the subsequent realisation that trying too hard prevents the more natural emotions, skills and tendencies from becoming realised. There’s a grace here that can only come from someone who’s solved the workings of their own mind and, in turn, allowed this to be reflected in the music. A beautiful simplicity that’s timeless. - The Liminal (UK)

The Weather Station: All of it Was Mine
You’ve Changed
BY: Rob Duffy
GRID RATING: 7/10
USER RATINGS: 1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars6 Stars7 Stars8 Stars9 Stars10 Stars

Toronto-based singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman is well-known as a choir member of acclaimed indie ensemble Bruce Peninsula, but kind of like Feist is to Broken Social Scene, she might soon simply get too famous to appear at all of their gigs.

With the release of this, her second album as The Weather Station, Lindeman takes a big leap towards establishing herself as a dependably wistful and thought-provoking folk artist, equally skilled with banjo, melody and poetry.

Guided on the producing end by solo artist (and City and Colour acolyte) Daniel Romano, All of It Was Mine is an inward-looking collection of tales, mostly set within the confines of home—even on the album’s gem track, “Traveller,” the furthest distance Lindeman dares to seek out is the corner of her street.

And therein lies the skill of this record: illuminating all the complicated emotions that lie just within arm’s reach. - The Grid

All Of It Was Mine

The Weather Station
You’ve Changed Records.


SCQ Rating: 87%

On days I wake up in fervor about some sensational label I’d dreamed up in the night, it’s relieving to remember that You’ve Changed Records actually exists. The common strains of retro aesthetic and rustic approach linking each release would be good for nothing without music that rivals the grassroots appeal of this young catalog and You’ve Changed Records hasn’t had much in the way of quality control problems lately, what with expert releases by Shotgun Jimmie and Daniel Romano. That said, the label might've landed its crowning achievement with The Weather Station’s All Of It Was Mine.

Confronting the new album by Tamara Lindeman with grand compliments seems a damning thought, as though the record's delicacy may wilt under a single glare of hype. Her sophomore record is a lean twenty-eight minutes of acoustic lilts, with Lindeman’s songbird delivery often resolutely caged. Vulnerability is something The Weather Station has in droves but it’s never the suffocating sort; these arrangements move too briskly and have too much on their minds to bother soaking in a melodramatic moment. Opener ‘Everything I Saw’ establishes The Weather Station as a band – featuring a handful of musicians including Misha Bower of Bruce Peninsula and Romano on a variety of instruments – which boasts the light twang of banjo whilst ‘Came So Easy’ finds Lindeman with an acoustic in her kitchen, backed by Bower’s lovely harmonies. Her sweet delivery creates an idyllic mood-piece but the implicit pleasantries disguise a crucial streak of regret and doubt that give ‘Chip On My Shoulder’ and ‘If I’ve Been Fooled’ their bite.

Some of the finest tracks tend to evaporate suddenly but perhaps that temporary nature witnessed on ‘Yarrow and Mint’ and ‘Trying’ works to their advantage, since – let’s face it – I am playing them over and over. And since so few moments on All Of It Was Mine offer refrain or respite, I’ve found myself compelled by the fleeting poignancy of its lyrical and instrumental turns. The Weather Station doesn’t spare a note or sentiment here, resulting in a stunning half-hour of bittersweet folk that stands alongside the year’s very best. - Skeleton Crew Quarterly

“What if I’ve been fooled / by a story, or a song / or a memory remembered wrong?”
— “If I’ve Been Fooled”

Sometimes I have to wonder: what really happened? What’s an experience and how do I know if I’ve had one? Memory is, by nature, imperfect; it’s messy, futile, and even dishonest at times. We have the ability to invent our own versions of our lives in our heads. We have sentimental attachments to certain objects that bring us back to specific periods of our lives, and we hold onto them sometimes without any real way of articulating why to anyone else. We remember details and fragments of our lives, often miscalculating chronology entirely, forgetting entire pieces of the story. But there’s something to be said about what those details say about our experience.

All Of It Was Mine, the newest record from The Weather Station, is ornately detailed: lilac, a jar of your parent’s honey, milkweed silk, “little flecks on the brick, where the paint did not stick,” and the Madawaska view. All of these images seem immediately recognizable, somehow nostalgic, even—despite the fact that they are entirely specific to the songwriter, Tamara Lindeman. These songs have been grown in dirt, tended to; a collection of memories weeded together, to make sense of the sensory, to find self in the tactile. The songs are not unlike being invited into someone’s home to rustle through their belongings.

The word mine implies ownership, which, considering many of the songs on this record evoke relationships—family, friends, and partners alike—is important to note. The first song, “Everything I Saw,” asserts this ownership—Tamara goes on to catalog a gorgeously meticulous, seemingly patchwork list of various items, “all of [which] are [hers].” These items seem crucial to her forming of an identity for herself; these are things that belong to her and make her who she is. She comments on the way others attempt to inform her identity in “Chip On My Shoulder,” where she sings: “All of them loved me / because I was empty / and they saw in me something they could feed,” attesting to the fact that to the outside world, and to the people in her life, her identity may not yet be fully formed.

Though the relationships in the songs never seem easy—there is at times a kind of hardship, perhaps; an inability to communicate, a quietness—they seem to be a labour of love. These relationships are left, intentionally it seems, somewhat vague, and juxtaposed against exterior imagery, especially in songs like “Running Around Asking” and “Trying,” the listener is invited to fill in the blanks with their own secrets, and find their own way through the songs. The journey of the record is one of displaced self-discovery, and thankfully we find out in “Nobody,” that “it was hard-won, but I found my place.”

The music itself seems, somehow, timeless. Part of the album’s immediate appeal is the mixture of harmonized singing, plucked banjos, and subtle guitar work, which give the album a warm, crisp sound. I had the joy of hearing this album for the first time at the crack of dawn, riding my bike on empty streets as the sun started to make its way over the trees and buildings of the city before it woke up entirely. The album is a perfect soundtrack to the end of summer, and the approach of fall, which is echoed in the album itself: the imagery shifts from summer (“Came So Easy”) to winter (“Nobody”) by the end of the record.

What makes the album truly special is that it’s both lovely and reckless; the songs are, of course, very beautiful, but Tamara’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and go searching for something more, something buried underneath all those flowers in her garden. And despite the record’s personal nature, the fact that is essentially an exploration of a singular identity, the songs end up being surprisingly inviting to the listener, engaging them in her memories and allowing them to feel as though all of it is theirs, too. - Southern Souls

By Kerry DooleThis is the second album from the Weather Station (aka singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman), a member of acclaimed ensemble Bruce Peninsula. Her 2009 debut, The Line, featured adventurous folk, while this lovely effort is sparser in its approach. The sessions took place with producer Daniel Romano at his home studio in Welland, ON, and he adds guitars, drums, bass and backing vocals. Lindeman plays guitar and banjo, with Bruce Peninsula comrade Misha Bower adding some background vocals. Much of the album is simple and largely unadorned folk that concentrates on the sweet intimacy of Lindeman's voice and her poetic imagery. Her vocals are reminiscent of an early Joni Mitchell on "Came So Easy," or of something you'd hear on an early '70s album on Asylum. She even splits the record into side one and two, with a short running time (28 minutes). Just when things threaten to become a bit too wispy and ethereal, Romano chimes in with noisier guitar parts to ground things, as on "Know it to See it" and "Nobody." This ranks alongside Jennifer Castle's recent album as new folk of the highest order.
(You've Changed) - Exclaim

THE WEATHER STATION

All of It Was Mine (You've Changed)

(out of 4)

Young Canadian songwriter Tamara Lindeman has a magical way of turning down your lights, pulling shut the drapes, pouring you something tall and chilled, lighting some candles, then letting you know that, whatever your cares and tribulations, everything is going to be all right. I guess you could call this shoegazer roots, if there is such a genre. The 10 original songs on her second full-length album is such a perfectly turned gem of whispered emotion that I wished each were much longer. In fact, most of the songs end far too soon. The Weather Station gang adds minimal accompaniment from acoustic strings, a bit of drum and a chord or two on electric guitar. Lindeman's dusky-sweet vocals are charming, as are Misha Bower's harmonies. Lindeman and the Weather Station showcase the new album at the new Centre for Social Innovation (a.k.a. CSI Annex) on Aug. 19. - The Toronto Star

All of It Was Mine, the second album by Toronto’s the Weather Station, was released last August on the small Canadian imprint You’ve Changed. It’s the kind of record that you don’t need to rush to hear; plain but elegant, simple but intricate, the mostly acoustic songs of tremulous singer Tamara Lindeman aren’t the type of numbers bound to light up music blogs for the next week or two, then fade away.
Rather, they’re built with concise and precise images, sung sweetly over sounds that split the difference between transcontinental folk fathers Doc Watson and Bert Jansch. It’s a fool’s errand to suggest that anything is timeless, but as they hint at lust and flirt with the future, Lindeman’s proudly diffident love songs do seem preternaturally sturdy.
Over the gently traipsing banjo of “Trying,” Lindeman pauses one line into the last verse, as though in final attempt to gather some resolve and direction in the world. “I am trying,” she sings, pausing again to let the instruments momentarily expire, “for some kind of grace.” The song stops there, Lindeman leaving a deliberate disconnect between self-improvement and self-fulfillment. Her songs feel very much like attempts to understand and appreciate the world in spite of its bitter ills; like the most basic forms of folk music, a term Lindeman readily embraces, they come with intent and aim. - Pitchfork - Pitchfork

"So nice to see new venues on Gottigen Street," my cab driver remarked as we pulled up to The Company House. The venue, barely a year old, has added a welcome vibrancy and nighttime bustle to one of Halifax's most maligned and overlooked north-end neighbourhoods. Inside, the red walls, cozy lighting and friendly faces added to the warm atmosphere. Toronto songwriter Tamara Lindeman, who plays under the moniker The Weather Station, looked a little flummoxed by the bright lights and noisy crowd—"All I can see are sparkles of light. It's quite surreal," she said at one point—but quickly became comfortable. Lucky for us, too, because her show is spellbinding.

It's easy to see how Lindeman has dazzled so many other writers and showgoers. When you try to describe this woman and the music she makes, words fail. It is difficult to describe something that sounds so familiar but also feels so otherworldly. Lindeman's voice rings delicate but deep, and her fingers move on instruments—banjo strings, guitar frets, and a bow—with strength and sureness beyond her years. A lot of female songwriters are compared to Joni Mitchell, but Lindeman is the first musician I've ever seen who actually captures her vocal and lyrical prowess. The music is also delightfully ambient—sometimes Lindeman would loop her voice into a three part harmony, and ended one song with a gentle whistle that sounded like the call of a loon. For her last two songs, she was joined by bandmates from her equally good ensemble, Entire Cities. They launched quickly into a banjo-fuelled, propulsive rager, with some members seated offstage and standing on the floor. Somehow, all of the song's intricate parts floated and eventually met, fitting together just as it seemed on the verge of collapse. The show was entirely too short, and my only complaint is reserved for the people clustered at the back, talking loudly throughout the set. But Lindeman seemed unfazed, totally locked in this unearthly, beautiful musical landscape she'd created—and so were we.
By Alison Lang October 24 2009 - Soundproof Magazine

This music stuff sure can be serious business sometimes. When Bon Iver's Justin Vernon secluded himself in an isolated cabin for a winter to deal with the break-up of a band and a relationship, he produced one of the most (rightfully) lauded releases of 2008. For Emma, Forever Ago was an aching, almost desperate catharsis—a much-needed exorcism of love and self lost. With her group The Weather Station, Tamara Lindeman makes a similar attempt at hiding and healing on the new debut full-length, The Line.

Armed with a banjo and a broken heart, Lindeman (together with the rest of the band, Jack Donovan, Simon Borer, Dwight Schenk, and D. Alex Meeks) creates a stand-still atmosphere of Appalachian-inspired folk that mirrors the quiet, ambiguous anguish that drove this relative musical rookie to create The Line. Unlike Bon Iver's lush, layered, and more structured (albeit still lo-fi) arrangements, The Weather Station's approach is one of minimalism so extreme that it borders on creepy. But when more elements are added, the intensity drops instead of heightens, and the otherwise powerful songs get trapped in their own instrumental dead-ends. In the dark and silence, Lindeman's voice is beautifully haunting, ringing with the vulnerability of an early, less messed-up Cat Power, and in glimpses, with the dynamics of Ms. dare-to-compare Joni Mitchell ("The Hunter"). "East" is especially arresting; a carry-over from 2008's EP of the same name, it's the closest thing to a pop song found here (and a really good one at that), and the closest that Lindeman gets to sounding wistful and nostalgic instead of mournful.

Like an old journal you never hoped to come across again, eventually, reliving such an outpouring of emotion could possibly be a tiny bit cringe-worthy. It's not an uplifting listen, but The Line is mesmerizing and at times, quite moving. At the very least, it's a sure companion for nursing a case of the sad-sack blues. Mostly, it's an unapologetically sad and disarmingly honest document of one's personal despair; the stuff memorable albums are made of.
By Nicole Villeneuve - www.torontoist.com

For anyone thinking folk music is nothing but protest songs and grizzled geezers clutching rickety guitars painted with radical slogans, the Weather Station paints a grisly alternative. Hailing from Toronto, the dozen songs that make up their debut album, The Line, comes from the vision of Tamara Lindeman, wahat a dark vision it is.

Combining the expected (banjo, violin, acoustic guitars, soft drums and bass) with the completely what-the-fuck-was-that unexpected (sound collages, ghostly moans, bowed guitar – that’s right Dazed and Confused style), the music made by Lindeman and her assortment of credited cohorts bleeds with the traditions of Eastern Canada, yet confounds them, twists them. By the end of it all, it sounds like a Nova Scotian My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. A warped guitar solo stumbles and barks through the calm of strumming of “Coming to Town.” A lonely banjo plucks through a field of crickets in the coda of “Can’t Know.”

Folk is at the heart of the Weather Station, however, as evidenced by “The Waltz,” a simple banjo tune frames the album. Lindeman may have breathed new life into folk, but the traditions of her sound are never out of sight.
-June 25 2009 - Beatroute Magazine

More than one blogger has compared this almost frighteningly intense song cycle by Toronto's Tamara Lindeman to Bon Iver's woodsy rumination on love lost, For Emma, Forever Ago. The more important similarity lies in an incongruity: the ability to transmute the impenetrably personal details of a singular experience into something instinctively universal. Brace yourselves. (From The Line, myspace.com/ theweatherstationband)
-John Sakamoto May 23rd 2009 - The Toronto Star

TEN ACTS YOU SHOULDN'T MISS AT CMW.
Blending old-time folk and bluegrass music with chamber music and electro-acoustic noise sounds like a random exercise, but in the hands of The Weather Station, it's all in the service of ambience and emotional impact. Songwriter and singer Tamara Lindeman has a haunting voice that recalls a young Cat Power and a willful sense of story and setting that is hard to resist, making this relatively new Toronto band one from whom you can expect to hear much more.
Carl Wilson - The Globe and Mail

The Weather Station
The Line
By Rachel Sanders

The Weather Station play the haunting songs of Toronto, ON's Tamara Lindeman, who started writing music as a way to cope with a personal loss. Lindeman's powerful compositions range from simple acoustic melodies to creaking, groaning experimental folk elegies. From the fragile, threadbare opening track "Waltz," with its barely there banjo and quavering vocals, the disc launches into darkly foreboding dirge "Coming Into Town," where violin and cello murmur and rumble ominously in the build-up to a climax of wailing, distorted guitar. Although a couple of the tracks descend into impenetrable chaos, the band's penchant for using instruments in unusual and understated styles succeeds in creating a unique and compelling sound. The more conventional acoustic tracks, like "East," highlight Lindeman's lovely voice, which, throughout the disc, alternates between fierce and diaphanous. Loose arrangements and rather raggedy production suit this evocative collection of songs, which provides an intense listening experience and a lingering sense of unease. (Independent)
- Exclaim

The Line Review, April 2009

As you sift through the songs on Tamara Lindeman’s new record, The Line, you are struck by the sadness of the affair. Not the classic melancholy of another “break-up” record (which this could be, but every time I listen I feel like Tamara is expressing something more painful and harder to get past), but the sadness that comes when you see someone losing their innocence and youth and growing up faster than they might want.

Now, I can’t claim to know Tamara or what’s she’s gone through; a few fragmented emails and my take on the songs she writes doesn’t offer the depth to pass judgment on anyone, but when she started this musical project it was to get over her broken heart, and now it’s grown into something completely different over the last few years. Her music no longer seems like a collection of sounds that scream, “It’s going to be ok” but instead it makes you wonder if Tamara thinks that forgetting those soaring heights and crashing lows is a much safer way to travel.

There are many reasons why, but most obvious is time. Years have passed and the sting of the pain she felt lessens each day, but it’s easy to forget that Tamara wasn’t "technically" a musician when she started this. The last few years have shown her grow as much musically as she has emotionally and now every heartbreaking, painful thought and each musical choice has been debated, deliberated and revisited countless times until it sounds right.

The Weather Station is definitely Tamara’s outlet, but she is surrounded by some talented people who know her and her songs. Simon, Jack and Dwight offer subtle, but crucial flourishes and help make this solo project more accessible. Blasts of static, mandolin, and strings fill out the empty gaps you’d expect from such a somber affair and help spike the record and help the listener relate to these extremely personal stories.

Despite all these changes, she never loses the intimacy and power of her songs, as each emotion is ripe with clarity. Patience and maturity have usurped the freedom of singing simply to get things off her chest. From start to finish, The Line is the result of Tamara taking the time to really think about what she wants to say and how she wants it to be heard. Even the songs that have been carried over from her EP sound wiser, warmer and still somehow wearier, even though in most cases the changes are very minor. Regardless, her voice and arrangements might give us the glimmer of hope she can't seem to find.
-herohill.com - Herohill.com

The Weather Station started off life as a solo project of some time Bruce Peninsula choir member Tamara Lindeman. In response to a personal loss, Lindeman took up her flatmates instruments and began to play out her sorrows. Learning as she went, she recorded her songs on a cheap laptop in bedrooms and livingrooms around Toronto with various friends assisting when and where they could. Recorded over a period of 4 years, The Line is a project of a deeply personal nature: an overt expression of one persons despair. Yet somehow Lindeman manages to take the individual elements of her personal loss and make them feel somehow universal. Little wonder then that she has picked up more than a few comparisons with fellow love-lorn soul Justin “Bon Iver” Vernon.
Opener ‘Waltz’ begins with a minimal plucked banjo and showcases Lindeman’s delicate, emotion soaked voice intoning tales of being welcomed in to a family. The way in which the record is recorded lends a rawness to it; a sparseness that only serves to enhance the emotional subject matter. Skeletal reverb is abound and accompaniment often drones and distorts as if it is at the point of breaking. Mostly built up around Lindeman’s voice and banjo, members of her band add timely instrumentation to embellish the core sounds, be it ragged cello and violin on the beautiful ‘Can’t Know’, drones and handclaps on the sinister twisted folk ‘March’ or ultra distorted guitars and trombone on ‘Rind’. ‘Coming in to Town’ builds haunting harmonies around a reverb laden guitar and melodica line to creating a chilling sound, while ‘Amaranth’ uses found sounds and droning strings to enhance the urgent feeling of the mostly instrumental piece, with only a low moan in place of vocals.
While the arrangements on The Line appear to be minimal, in fact Lindeman frequently adds 30 to 40 tracks of “random embellishment” to add colour and feeling to her songs. As well as incorporating deliberate found sounds, creaking pianos and chopping scissors, the album also features the low, sinister hum of what Lindeman describes as “the secret language of printers and florescent lights”. On The Line, The Weather Station manage to combine traditional folk and americana sounds with these more modern and improvisational textures without diluting either.
With hypnotic arrangements and Lindeman’s haunting yet vulnerable dark folk melodies The Line showcases a serious talent emerging. It is an emotionally honest and frank collection of songs that deal openly with grief, anger, loss and regret, providing an intense listening experience that may well leave those that hear it with a prevailing sense of unease. The knowledge that it was only her loss that made her pick up an instrument and begin to play makes the accomplished nature of the record all the more remarkable. While It may not be the most uplifting debut record you hear this year, it will certainly be one of the best.
88%
The Line of Best Fit
www.thelineofbestfit.com - The Line of Best Fit (UK)