The Weather Station's Tamara Lindeman tells us about her Top 10 of 2022

The Weather Station followed up last year’s masterful Ignorance with How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars, a more delicate collection of tracks recorded during the same sessions that didn’t quite fit but made for an equally captivating companion album. Listen to that below.

We’ve been asking artists for their Top 10s of the year and Tamara Lindeman, who is The Weather Station for all intents and purposes, was kind to send us her list of 2022 favorites, which includes albums (Alvvays, Angel Olsen), film, books, an Instagram account, and more. With the kind of great commentary you’d expect from Lindeman, it’s a great read and you can check it out below.

The Weather Station spent much of 2022 on tour supporting Ignorance and How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars — including headline shows and dates supporting Mitski —  and will be on tour with First Aid Kit next summer, including a show at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall on July 18. All dates are listed below.

Pick up The Weather Station albums on vinyl in the BV shop.

THE WEATHER STATION’S TAMARA LINDEMAN – TOP 10 OF 2022

Alvvays – Blue Rev
Three perfect records in a row. That’s a lot harder than this band makes it look. I really respect that craft and those soaring, flawless melodies. You know the construction is there, you know the work underpins it, but you never feel it. It always flows and yet it’s always just jagged enough. I love how Molly has perfected her voice into this ice pick of sardonic observation, disdain, and tenderness; I never realized until this record how great the lyrics are and how many gems there are hidden in the reverb. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed any guitar record so I was grateful to this one for reminding me.

Isla Craig – Echo’s Reach
I’ve been waiting a long time for a record like this from Isla Craig. Beautiful, graceful music about ritual, survival, and resilience. Strong, interwoven melodies that always hint at British Isles folk while also having this deep groove and deep pocket and just a bit of psychedelia too. I’ve been finding a lot of solace and wisdom in Jungian ideas lately and this record is the perfect accompaniment to that journey.

Angel Olsen – Big Time
Country is the perfect container for her enormous voice. The dry, deadpan country backdrop works so well with the pathos and the drama of her voice, sets it off in this way where the pain hits right. I love how she sometimes sings in this way that leans almost into petulance, or into a sulky mode of feeling, that is an emotional colour you don’t often hear in music, but that is really cathartic in this way. And really great lyrics too, a lot of memorable lines that sit with me.

Evan J Cartwright – Bit by Bit
Playful, strange, lovely; this is a deeply unusual record and a very unusual statement from a very unusual human and musician. Dancing in the line between Great American Songbook playfulness and something entirely other, with bird samples and snatches of casual conversation. Evan is one of the most authentically singular humans I’ve ever known and I love how much that quality of his is reflected in this record, as well as a kindness, a curiosity, and a lovely openness to the world.

Turning Red (Director: Domee Shi)
As someone living in Toronto, of course I had to watch for the ’90s Toronto nostalgia, but honestly this is a really great film. So glad it exists, a beautiful parable that you could read in many ways. For me the way that resonated most was the complexity of what to do with an unruly or freakish or potentially destructive part of oneself; whether to hide it, renounce it, commodify it; or understand, honour, and harness it. Ultimately I felt it as a story about integrity. Really beautiful implications there for a modern world and for young women hopefully growing up watching it.

Generation Dread by Britt Wray
I think everyone over 45 should have to read this book and understand what we’ve been dealing with our whole lives. Grateful to Britt Wray for devoting her work to shining a bright light on climate dread and anxiety and how it has impacted Gen Z and millenials. I have said before and I’ll say it again; I believe climate anxiety and climate grief is the unseen shadow at the heart of all of our crises of society and mental health, and until that’s faced, we can’t understand fully what is happening in us and around us. In this context, Britt Wray’s book is indispensable.

The instagram account of Kai Cheng Thom
I try to stay off social media, but I can never leave completely, because there is a lot there that can be really giving and useful. This year I really enjoyed Yumi Sakugawa’s account, as well as the perfect juxtaposition of Adrienne Maree Brown’s transcendent and important writing and her very funny, very silly meme account. But in a difficult personal year where I was dealing with some really obliterating conflict, coming across Kai Cheng Thom’s beautifully thoughtful visualizations and deep human insight was a genuine lifesaver. The reading here around conflict, accountability, and transformative justice were transformative for me, in being able to determine the line between accountability and appeasement, justice and abuse. In particular the charged way Kai writes about the hidden intensity of emotion around conflict and the taboo of conflict really unearthed a lot of things for me. I am grateful to anyone who opens my mind, and this account, along with the writing of the many practitioners of the ideas around transformative justice have really helped me to put a lot of pieces together, and understand a lot of things I had long felt, but been unable to articulate. Grateful to be set out on the journey.

Taylor Swift – Midnights (3AM Edition)
I heard ‘Could’ve, Would’ve, Should’ve’ and realized Taylor Swift is still a country songwriter, except the milieu and emotional territory she’s writing about is about being the objectified young woman rather than chasing the objectified young woman. She’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to do and that’s why she’s still around. Just like George Jones and Waylon Jennings, she gets drunk on the emotion and the pain and she doesn’t spare herself either, but you can drink this wine and not imbibe all the misogyny you have to drink with all the older country music. I’m not crazy about the production and there are songs I don’t love, but I think because of the subject matter and the self reflection in it, this was the record where I finally understood the cult and bought in and honestly, I’m glad I did.

Shad – Tao
This came out at the end of 2021 but I’m only digging into it now. Beautifully humanistic rap about life, modernity, society, and what it is to be a person. Shad is a beautiful philosopher with so much to say. I really resonate with his perspective and appreciate the wisdom here, amid the humility, the humour, and the sweetness.

Georgia Harmer – Stay In Touch
This was a pleasant surprise for me. I didn’t expect to resonate so much with an album made by someone in their early twenties, but this album just feels so sincere and open and honest, you can’t help but fall for it. Beautifully concise observational lyrics with just enough gems of insight and thoughtfulness, and without discernible traces of artifice or ego. A lovely singer songwriter record with a lot of depth, and a lot to say about care, sincerity, and empathy.

—

THE WEATHER STATION – 2023 TOUR DATES
all dates supporting First Aid Kit

TUE 11 JULY – Ryman Auditorium Nashville, TN, US
WED 12 JULY – Thomas Wolfe Auditorium: Harrah’s Cherokee Center Asheville, NC, US
FRI 14 JULY – The Anthem Washington, DC, US
SAT 15 JULY – The Fillmore Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA, US
SUN 16 JULY – Roadrunner Boston, MA, US
TUE 18 JULY – Radio City Music Hall New York (NYC), NY, US
THU 20 JULY – History Toronto, ON, Canada
FRI 21 JULY – Frederik Meijer Gardens Grand Rapids, MI, US
SUN 23 JULY – Palace Theatre St. Paul, MN, US