Albums: Humanhood

One of the most intense, invigorating and poignant recording ever made by The Weather Station, "Humanhood" written during one of the most difficult periods of Lindeman's life and rendered with a rock band just as she began to recover by reckoning with a awful truth, well you know, sometimes, life simply tries to dismantle us, no matter how good everything may seem, and we must accept that in order to survive.

According to band, this album was performed by the six musicians who improvised alive in two sessions at the end of 2023, the whole concept was molded by the band itself in terms of form, arrangements, mood and feeling, obviously, Lindeman remians in the spot light as a singer and main composer, but the band play a key role here. 

Even when the songs are more evocative that narrative creating an atmosphere, the result is impressive, theses songs are less inmeditate than the "Ignorance" set. Since  2022 likely appeared a year of glory for Lindeman. Ignorance, in which her “shape-shifting avant-folk reached a kind of apex, as she sings coolly about climate grief, love, lust, healing, and the upheaval of self-discovery. It was a time of touring, travel, and activism alongside Ignorance's more austere companion. But at an ostensible new professional peak, she was also struggling with a mental health crisis. Working through a crisis of meaning, she wrote from within the confusion of the experience to create the songs that would ultimately become Humanhood, a narrative album that, listened to front to back, transcribes the journey from dissociation back towards connection.  

Much of Humanhood is a real document of what it means to be lost, to be hamstrung by confusion, unease, and grief for a period so long you begin to wonder if there is an end. As with Ignorance, the first person lyrics point to a wider resonance; we’re all dealing with ourselves through climate disaster, as the world totters near a breaking point, and none of it is easy or precedented. On previous albums, Lindeman mostly wrote about her past, turning backwards to gain perspective. But for Humanhood, she wrote from the present as she tried to work through it. Humanhood, then, radiates with new urgency—and emerges as a sort of tether, offered up here for anyone else feeling disconnected from the vertiginous reality of right now.

Since the very beginning with "Descent" a brief instrumental passage jazz-a-like, then it comes the accessible "Neon Signs", another great one is "Body Moves" talking about the physics and the emotional doubt, the music is smooth with a moody sax that comes out from nowhere, "Humanhood" has a certain electronic vibes but reaches new heights to become one of the most remarkables and powerful cut on the set, then you have the trippy "Irreversible Damage" but that just another deal. 

A good work from Lindeman and her band, they decided to dare and move away from easyness looking a different improvisation, a must-listen. 

Humanhood Track List: 

1. Descent  
2. Neon Signs
3. Mirror
4. Window
5. Passage
6. Body Moves
7. Ribbon
8. Fleuve
9. Humanhood
10. Irreversible Damage
11. Lonely
12. Aurora
13. Sewing