A change in the weather
It took a while for me to get from admiration to love for the Weather Station’s new album, Humanhood. At Islington Assembly Hall last night, Tamara Lindeman and her four musicians — Ben Boye (keyboards), Karen Ng (alto saxophone, flute, keyboards), Ben Whiteley (bass guitar) and Dom Billett (drums) — brought its songs fully to focus, in combination with several from its great 2021 predecessor, Ignorance.
This was, as Lindeman had promised, a show designed for theatres, with subtle lighting and a set consisting of three tall, pale, rough-hewn standing stones on which were projected fragments of elemental images: flickers of light from stars and fires, avalanches, drowning forests, all counterpointing the cool but never disengaged clarity of the songs.
The musicianship was exemplary. Whiteley anchored the sometimes irresistible grooves, Billett graded his volume with great care, Ng added the occasional free-jazz flurries on alto that bring the music into a different atmosphere, Boye provided synth mood-setters and lovely spare unaccompanied piano passages, Lindeman contributed economical electric lead guitar.
Together they established moods that were sustained and allowed to evolve through clusters of half a dozen songs at a time, the dynamic ranging from reflecting near-silence on “Lonely” and “Sewing” to that gentle but irresistible gallop in which Lindeman specialises on songs such as Humanhood‘s title track and “Neon Signs” and Ignorance‘s “Loss” and the sublime “Parking Lot”.
Her lyrics are extraordinary: non-repeating snatches of thought and conversation that somehow came through more clearly in live performance, along with her concern for a threat to the environment renewed by the events of the last few months. After starting out as an acoustic singer-songwriter, she has now, with her musicians’ help, developed a carefully textured, agile and quietly resilient hybrid genre that is the ideal setting for her words.
On the last night of a European tour, this was pretty much a perfect concert, one likely to live long in the memory of a warmly appreciative audience.
* The Weather Station’s Humanhood is on the Fat Possum label.
thebluemoment.com 
I was there as well and really enjoyed the concert, a pleasure to hear the band and support artist treated with respect instead of the incessant chatter during sets heard all too often these days
Yes — I was impressed by that, too.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RICHARD ! I have been following you since the early seventies and you have always been an important musical pathfinder for me – that goes for Tamara too! The first time I read about her was thru your 10 star review in UNCUT! They played at the small club BLÅ in Oslo two years ago, but not this time. I wish you all the best for the future and look forward to more recommendations to come.