Rocktrospectiva: The Acclaimed "Ignorance" Turns 5

Released on 5 February 2021 "Ignorance" was the 5th., studio album by Canadian band The Weather Station, the album spawned two singles "Robber" & "Tried To Tell You". 

The album's ten tracks were recorded with two percussionists, a saxophonist and a flutist, plus bass, keys, and guitar. Songwriter Tamara Lindeman wrote and produced all the songs. The album's main theme was based on Lindeman's contemplation of the global climate crisis. 

The album opened with "Robber", this was a statement over a lush and complex instrumental track, Tamara Lindeman sang about the invisible forces that have shaped the world, consolidating power for themselves while disenfranchising others. Saxophone, strings and piano all enter into the mix at one point or another, creating the most expansive and politically charged song from the project to date. 

Co-produced with Marcus Paquin, Ignorance reimagined Lindeman's place within her own music and the scope of her project as a whole. Every moment feels lush and welcoming, designed to reach as many people as possible. Ironically, Lindeman wrote many of the songs alone with just an old keyboard, playing along to its rudimentary drum loops. Like "Separated," you can heard their humble beginnings: the deft, ambling rhythm of her fingerpicking is replaced with pulsing major chords; her lyrics, which once spilled into the margins with asides and scene directions, arrive in pared-down cycles of verse, swapping a few words while maintaining the general structure.

The Weather Station, and Ignorance represented at the time an even larger leap forward, incorporating elements of soft jazz and sophisti-pop into the mix. It’s certainly the most pop forward thing she’s done, but it’s far from straightforward. The instrumentals feel almost organic, each track containing different musical strands that coalesce and grow into one. It’s the most vast and cinematic Lindeman’s music has ever felt.

Another album highlight was "Heart," she sang over an aerodynamic rhythm, her falsetto swooping between each substratum of percussion like a small bird navigating the floors of a mansion. It was a rare moment in her songbook where you can tuned out the lyrics and just get lost in the music. She sang starkly in "Wear," the first moment on the album where her voice sounds truly unaccompanied, with a ticking drumbeat and high, dissonant piano chord dissolving beneath it. 

Lindeman, she had referred to "Parking Lot" as a love song for a bird,  and, for the most part, that's what it was. Standing outside a venue before a show, and on the verge of what sounds like a minor breakdown, she notices a small bird flying around the parking lot. Her writing throughout Ignorance can feel like the collected epiphanies from a lifetime of observing.

Ignorance was both a breakup album and an exploration of the state of the world. Lindeman became interested in climate change while writing the album, but rather than being a political statement the album explores what it means to existed in a world that may soon become uninhabitable. The natural world was a constant throughout the album, whether in the form of sunlight streaming through a window, a stunning sunset or a bird flying through the air.  In the end Ignorance was widely acclaimed by music critics and called it a piercing new album, also applauded and priased Lindeman's lyrics about climate change.  

 

Ignorance Track List:

 

1. Robber

2. Atlantic

3. Tried To Tell You

4. Parking Lot

5. Loss

6. Separated

7. Wear

8. Trust

9. Heart

10. Subdivisions