Well, the tour is over.  I played my Weather Station songs, played banjo in Entire Cities, and also hollered with Bruce Peninsula all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean and back again.

As always, touring reminds me of what I already know.  That Canada is a beautiful place, full of people that are deeply kind, very talented, and worth knowing.

Halifax Pop Explosion is the nicest festival EVER.  I just want to point that out.  So nice.  And so many lovely/crazy things happened.  Like a completely unexpected house show in Saint John that got broken up by the cops in the nicest way possible, but we still sang Crabapples while dancing wildly around a shag carpeted living room with babies, youths, and older folks shreiking 'OH HELL NO!' while the cop smiled, and took Leon's drum sticks.  And then there was playing a coffee shop in the Ottawa Valley to the most lovely crowd ever, in the middle of nowhere.  And also leaping exhaustedly around the Gus's Pub stage with Entire Cities, waving streamers in the air, channeling my 7 year old ribbon dancing self while screaming 'fucked up' into the microphone.  And the myriad pleasures and pains of driving a few thousand kilometers, sardined into a station wagon, with our gear and possessions piled to the roof.

We got a couple reviews for our Halifax Pop showcase.  Gosh, they are nice. 

SoundProof Magazine:
"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

The Coast - Scene and Heard
Later on I went to the Company House for The Weather Station, the solo-ish project of Tamara Lindeman, who plays banjo with Entire Cities (Gus', 12am tonight). I had a love affair with banjos in the spring and summer of last year, ending with a week at a friend's in Winnipeg where I'd sit in a chair with his cat and listen to him practice every night. Then those banjo times disappeared and life went on, but The Weather Station puts me right back there. Understated and elegiac, this is kind of what I imagine it was like watching Joni Mitchell play an empty club in Toronto in 1965. The contributions from her Entire Cities bandmates on some songs are lovely, but the stripped-down aesthetic is completely fulfilling on its own. 
By Laura Kenins

A shockingly nice review from one of the UK's biggest blogs:
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/06/the-weather-station-the-line/

The internet seems to be listening to The Line and here's some things that folks have to say so far.

http://www.herohill.com/2009/04/reviews-weather-station-line.htm
http://rnrnonsense.toomanyvoices.com/2009/03/review-weather-station-line.html
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/Albums/The_Weather_Station_-_The_Line.html
http://staergetaleht.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-fck-is-no-one-in-america-blogging.html

Full texts:
http://rnrnonsense.toomanyvoices.com/2009/03/review-weather-station-line.html

Review: The Weather Station - The Line

Label: self-released (distributed by Fontana North/Universal)

Released: April 28, 2009

Terms like lo-fi and DIY have become quite commonplace these days. Unfortunately, these terms are often applied to music that could also be described as contrived or just rotten. The Weather Station is certainly the epitome of both of those common terms, but not of the descriptions which often destroy them.

The Weather Station is both a band and not a band at the same time. Really, it is self-taught multi-instrumentalist Tamara Lindeman with a revolving cast of characters (including her live band). Recorded in bedrooms and living rooms rather than studios and on equipment Lindeman was learning how to use as she went, the album is raw and often quite sparse. However, it's rawness doesn't overshadow a strong sense of both tradition and experimentation. On one hand, The Line is folk music as it's been played in living rooms and on front porches for decades. It captures the primal need we have to make music, to explore and expose the darkness. The album is sparse and dark to the point of being difficult, yet is carried by the honesty of those very same qualities.

At the same time, Lindeman's arrangements push the limits of what folk music can be. Droning strings, Moog, household items and "found sound" all contribute to its boldness and create tension between what folk music has long been and what it could become. As much as she pushes these songs to their limits, they are still as natural as being uncomfortable in one's own skin. Her innovations are not merely a veneer on top of traditional folk either. Instead, experimentation and tradition intertwine throughout the album to create something entirely unique.

The Line is by no means an easy listen, but then neither is any true human story. At times, it is incredibly low-key and then something, a guitar, some random noise, will pierce the lull. Likewise, there is anger and pain here, but beauty also pierces through that. It is both the confusion and the affirmation of being alive.

http://www.herohill.com/2009/04/reviews-weather-station-line.htm

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.

http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/Albums/The_Weather_Station_-_The_Line.html
The Weather Station
The Line

(Killbeat)

SOUNDS LIKE: Banjo-backed, femininely gentile Appalachian folk music that's distinctively Canadian.

WHY/WHY NOT: There's something utterly resplendent about the sound of the humble and noble banjo. The image of a girl with braids down her back, skirts hauled to the knee, sitting with a banjo picking away – lonesome voice, Appalachian heart – always conjures up in my mind when I hear the solo strum of this wonderful instrument. It's this essence, this genuine sound of Americana at its finest that has been captured in the overall theme of Tamara Lindeman's The Line – the first album from her outfit, The Weather Station.

And yet Americana it's not – Canadiana more like it, having grown out of Toronto's fertile music scene. But the tradition is properly observed and respected nonetheless. Chirping frogs, guitar and banjo, haunting voice, pots and pans, even scissors, are all present here with such sublime songs as the nostalgically romantic "East" and "The Hunter", which is as delicate as cracked teacups, too pretty to throw away. The beautifully titled "Amaranth", particularly stands out, however, with hypnotizing arrangements and lulling voices gathered together in melancholy melody. This album is dusk and the end of a hot summer day – such prettiness, you'll find encompassed in The Line.

http://staergetaleht.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-fck-is-no-one-in-america-blogging.html

Why The F*ck Is No One In America Blogging About ∞ The Weather Station

Tamara Lindeman is the female Bon Iver. She used music to cope with some tough emotional times. I can't say that I am happy that she was so sad, but for her to produce such amazing music, I kind of hope she never cheers up. Her band's debut - The Line - comes out next month.

I'm sure you'll be hearing more about her and The Weather Station in 2009.

April 28th is the date.
We will be releasing our first full length, The Line, into the world with the help of Fontana North.

The Line is 12 tracks long. Four of those tracks were seen in some form on 'East'.

The Line is the culmination of four years of slow and patient work,
teaching myself to record and write music in order to say something
specific about loss. I'm not sure if I said it, but I think I said
something.

Our official CD release will be April 30th, in the
Tranzac's Main Hall. Muskox & Isla Craig will play, Snowblink too,
and Weird Weather of Peterborough, who are also releasing a disc. A
secret team of people will be transforming the Tranzac into a forest
like space. More on that later.


Following this The Weather Station will be appearing out east in mid May, with the wonderful Timber Timbre.

It's actually done now.
Now... how to put it out into the world?
This is a question that may take us some time to solve.  But bear with us.  Somehow, it will be in stores in the New Year.  Even if we have to put it in those stores ourselves.

We are on the Anti-Hit list today.  Here's the friendly things they said:

2. THE WEATHER STATION
"East"

While awaiting the long-overdue debut album by this Toronto aggregation led by singer-writer extraordinaire Tamara Lindeman, fans of haunting acoustic music can take comfort in this title track to the band's criminally under-heard EP. Apart from the lullaby-like music, it features a delicate arrangement that makes a piano, guitar, banjo and violin sound like the only four instruments anyone would ever need.

Due to work complications, we will no longer be able to play Sherbrooke.  We are really sad about this, but there's no helping it! 

Good news is we're going to manage to get to Pop Montreal after all. 

Also in good news - the album is done.

 

I have begun a new blog.  I'll be writing about music, recording, and the places we may find ourselves.

If you are curious, its at: www.stationweather.blogspot.com

hello.

We have reached the top 25 of a competition I didn't even know we were in.  It's the chance to showcase at the Sirius stage at Pop Montreal.  We'd love to do this, clearly, and would love it if you could help us.  Simply go to http://www.popmontreal.com/en/popthumbs/ and click on us, then click 'pop' not 'poop'!

Thanks!

Hello.

We are filming a show September 2nd at The Cameron House, and you are invited to come.  The show will likely be free, will start at 8 PM, and will be just as good as we can make it.

If you come you'll likely be in our little video, which will kind of be a mini documentary about the band.  So you should come.

We'll have an opening act as well, TBA.

t