Just a year ago, The Weather Station released one of our favorite albums of 2021, Ignorance, and today singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman announced that she’s prepping its companion piece, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars.
“When I wrote Ignorance, it was a time of intense creativity, and I wrote more songs than I ever had in my life,” Lindeman explained in a statement. “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 naive. Songs that spoke to many of the same questions and realities as Ignorance, but in a more internal, thoughtful way. 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 followup to Ignorance, but rather as a companion piece; the moon to its sun.”
HIITISLATS was recorded live off the floor at Toronto’s Canterbury Music Studios from March 10-12, 2020 and was co-produced by Jean Martin. Lindeman sang and played piano while the band improvised their accompaniment, 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 project notably is void of percussion.
When the session began, COVID was in the news but not in the forefront. That, of course, all changed. Quickly. The album’s lead single “Endless Time” was written long before the pandemic, but it took on a new meaning when The Weather Station recorded it.
“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,” Lindeman recalled. “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.”
HIITISLATS is slated for a March 4 release via Fat Possum. Pre-order the album here and see its album art and tracklist below.
The Weather Station — How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars Tracklist
1. Marsh
2. Endless Time
3. Taught
4. Ignorance
5. To Talk About
6. Stars
7. Song
8. Sway
9. Sleight of Hand
10. Loving You
