The Fat Angel Sings

Tamara Lindeman is a Canadian folk singer who writes gentle songs that scan more like marginalia a wise reader left on a poem than poems themselves. They are sumptuous enough to recall the sweeping, gilded discography of Joni Mitchell, but only the laziest listener would draw that comparison based solely on nationality and gender. No, Tamara is more her own woman, her music is air-tight, like a study in the art of inverse, or an experiment with passion’s ability to remain austere. Explorations of love aren’t limited strictly to romance, either, but encompass friendships with other women on “Like Sisters” and “Shy Women”–two of the album’s standouts–or parse artistic admiration on “Tapes” and “Life’s Work.” On all of these, the album’s title comes through as a guiding principle, not quite commandment as much as personal chosen tenet.  work reminds us that sometimes the quietest voice is the one most worth listening to, the slowest moments might be the most brilliant, and the most valuable qualities are not visible to the naked eye.

Tradition-spanning contemplative folk that captures rare beauty in both lyrics and melodies,On her third album, Loyalty, Toronto-based songwriter Tamara Lindeman’s poetic reflections are set to minimalist combos of acoustic guitar, keys and just enough percussion to add bite to her words. For the album, she worked closely with Feist engineer Robbie Lackritz and Afie Jurvanen (a.k.a. Bahamas). “Lately, I’ve outsourced my boundaries to other people,” she says. “I require someone or something to tell me when to stop.” In the case of Loyalty, she found out with two months to spare that she was going to record at La Frette Studios in France. When she arrived, she was still rewriting, and had to sing scratch vocals on a few tracks. “There were still one or two words, or like one line that I was going to change,” she recalls. “Everyone just loved the scratch vocal. My two collaborators were like, ‘You’re not allowed to sing it again.'” In turn, her low, rich voice brings out the textures of dry grass, the cityscape, and relentless rain in intimate fashion. My style of songwriting is I tend to play guitar and daydream and sorta sing stuff. I tend to record it to remember. In that phase, I tend to sing all the same stuff anyone else sings. I sing about rain and the moon. My tendency over time is to refine that into something that feels really meaningful and I can hang onto it for a long time.”

The Weather Station’s “Loyalty” will be released May 12, 2015 on Paradise of Bachelors.