The sun is streaming in on Tamara Lindeman’s home studio in Toronto, but, like many Canadians, she is all too aware of the storm clouds on the horizon. Looking south, those clouds have configured into the silhouette of Donald Trump, who has spoken openly about making Canada the “51st state” of the US.
For the indie songwriter, who records blisteringly bittersweet alternative pop as The Weather Station, and whose music is deeply concerned with the state of the planet, the Maga new world order represents a chilling departure from normality.
“It’s really scary. I have so many friends in the United States. Two of my band members on this tour are just arrived from the US. They’re feeling pretty fried. It’s really exhausting and scary for people. It’s scary for us too.”
Apocalypses of various kinds have been on Lindeman’s mind for several years. In February 2021 she released her extraordinary breakthrough album, Ignorance, a meditation on climate change that, through its sheer beauty, made the case for staying positive in the face of an overwhelming environmental crisis.
A heavy record delivered with a striking lightness of touch, Ignorance was a landmark for ecologically conscious pop music. To some it was a spiritual sequel to Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi (an early broadside against multistorey car parks) and Neil Young’s After the Goldrush.
It combined introspective lyrics (“I should get all this dying off of my mind / I should really know better than to read the headlines”) with a sharply honed pop sensibility that suggested Fleetwood Mac with lyrics by Greta Thunberg.
[ The Weather Station: Ignorance – Canadian band get into their ’80s grooveOpens in new window ]
This year Lindeman has followed that rapturously reviewed record with Humanhood, her equally moving seventh LP. It is a departure from her recent past, the songs informed not by a global crisis but by her own search for psychological wellness – “staying mentally well right now is a struggle,” as she explained in a recent interview.
She is about to perform material from the two albums at a Dublin show that is sure to be intense but, as brought to life by a band assembled from her favourite jazz players from Toronto and farther afield, will also be a celebration of the cathartic power of brilliantly made indie rock.
Lindeman’s mental-health issues were serious and long-lasting. She says she was forced to come to terms with a “loss of sense of self”. This wasn’t directly connected to her music career or overnight prominence, but she acknowledges that following up a hit LP – and an acclaimed 2022 companion release, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars – brought a degree of pressure.
Ignorance wasn’t simply a successful album. It positioned Lindeman as part of a wider movement of musicians speaking about the planet. Around the same time, Billie Eilish became an advocate for the Music Declares Emergency “No Music on a Dead Planet” campaign, which aims to encourage the music industry to “reinforce its commitment to action on the climate emergency”.
In April 2021, a few months after Lindeman put out Ignorance, Brian Eno launched Earth/Percent, a campaign to help fight climate change by raising tens of millions from the music business by 2030. The industry was starting to grapple with climate, and Lindeman was out in front. People were talking about her in the same breath as a global pop star and U2’s producer.
For a self-declared introvert, significant adjustment was required. Going back to 2009 and her debut album, The Line, music had functioned as a safe and private space for Lindeman, a former child actor – she played Tilda Swinton’s daughter in the 2001 film The Deep End – who had walked away from a profession she deemed “psychologically strange”.
To wake up one morning and find that her audience had increased exponentially and that people were waiting to hear what she did next was a huge shift.
Lindeman wasn’t exactly famous – she didn’t have to worry about paparazzi or strangers taking a prurient interest in her personal life. Still, she was in the spotlight to a degree – certainly a lot more than is the norm for earnest indie artists.
“I found it terrifying, because it’s that sensation of ‘people are listening,’” she says. “You’ve got to be careful.” Still, as with many artists, she has a stubborn side and doesn’t always have it in her to be a crowd-pleaser. She didn’t want to record Ignorance: Part 2, another LP that expressed her anxieties over global warming.
“I have a rebellious streak where I can’t seem to just do the normal thing,” she says. “I can’t seem to – knowing that people are listening – make what they expect. I can’t do that. So I was caught between a rock and a hard place.”
There were also nagging voices telling her the new songs weren’t up to scratch. It didn’t get to the level of writer’s block or a crisis of confidence. But she had to work at switching off her inner critic. “It took a while to regain my sense of freedom in terms of music. The problem with any creative process is that, once the critic enters the room, you’re not going to do anything.”
The struggle ultimately proved worthwhile. Just like Ignorance, Humanhood walks the tightrope between cathartic and accessible.
Fuelled by shuffling drums and a rush of acoustic guitar, Windows is a gorgeous eulogy to leaving the house and embracing nature that has shades of Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush. Closer Sewing is a punchy ballad about putting yourself back together after life has ripped you into tiny pieces.
The album is, at its core, the story of her journey back to mental and spiritual wellness. But it is also part of something bigger. Lindeman is wise enough to know she isn’t the only person to experience doubt or feel directionless. On the track Ribbon, she recalls fleeing her apartment in Toronto and driving to a fjord in Quebec. When she arrives, she discovers she is not alone: this place is a refuge for others too. “My pain is ordinary … Go down to the harbour just like anybody / Go straight down the water.”
The title Humanhood is an expression of Lindeman’s belief that we must stay connected to our humanity, no matter how painful that may be. The alternative is to give ourselves over to the tech bros and the AI that they’re trying to crowbar into every aspect of our lives.
Artificial intelligence “is something that’s being inserted into our communication and our conversation”, she says. “It’s awful. It’s horrifying. I will never use it, and I refuse to use it. To me, it speaks to something I was feeling already. And part of why I named the album Humanhood was this feeling of … ‘Who are we making this world for?’ It’s like the world is not for us any more. I don’t know who it’s for.”
The conversation comes back around to Trump and Elon Musk, his tech-industry enforcer. She sees Trump essentially as an ogre but regards Musk as understanding exactly what he is doing.
“We all know that Elon Musk is climate-informed. He knows what he’s doing. He’s not Trump. He’s not a madman. There are people out there whose minds I can’t relate to. It’s deeply confusing as to how he has support.”
Lindeman has been a touring musician for most of her adult life. Since the pandemic, the cost of touring has spiralled. She sees the latest run of dates, including her visit to Ireland, as the closing of a chapter. She’s going all out with a production that incorporates ambitious lighting and visuals, the better to communicate her message about the climate and its heartbreaking fragility. If this is a kind of farewell to her fans, she wants it to be special for her and her audience.
“When I booked these tours I thought, ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back.’ I don’t know how many shows I’ll be able to play on this record. It is precarious and expensive. I had the idea of, ‘I’m going to make it count.‘ I’m going to make the show longer. I’m going to make it bigger and just try to make it more meaningful.”
The Weather Station play the Button Factory, Dublin, on Saturday, March 8th. Humanhood is released by Fat Possum
