Will Schube is on the waiting list for a DONDA flamethrower
Tamara Lindeman possesses the sort of voice synonymous with long winter days. Maybe it’s the five degree freeze swallowing my Colorado world whole, or maybe because Lindeman recorded her latest as The Weather Station (the forthcoming Loyalty) over the course of a French winter. It’s a project built on the piercing simplicity of timeless folk music. Suggested touchstones have included Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, though Lindeman seems more suited for the private-press world than a sunset Coachella show in which STS9 submerges intimate ramblings with shattering bass.
On the single, “Way It Is, Way It Could Be” Lindeman’s voice hovers over weaving, finger-picked guitar and muffled bass drum. She creates a carapace for the frail track: turn your speakers up too loud and the song may just collapse. But at just the right volume, Lindeman’s voice feels like a personal conversation. She sings,
“You always tell me the truth / Even when it hurts me / It hurts you / ‘Cause you go a little easy.”
Alongside Steve Gunn and Kenny Knight, it positions her an important puzzle piece on the Paradise of Bachelors imprint. Her latest song is an examination of possibilities, of undiscovered avenues connected to the decisions we do and don’t make. We strive for pure honesty, yet human nature always stops just short of that idealized point. Over lush guitars and cold winter gusts, that may just be enough.
