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>The Weather Station - Ignorance
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Man, just got to shout this out again as one of the most on point releases I've heard this year.

I don't want to listen to it everyday (too heavy, definitely a mood) but track for track it is just... I don't know, it gets into indescribable territory. It's really hard to pin it down in terms of genre: it has a bit of Kate Bush, a bit of Joni, I'd say a bit of Tori, maybe some Rickie Lee Jones? And yet it's not really like any of them. Meshell's Bitter is like a twin project in a weird way, too, but again, not so much in terms of *sound* but rather in terms of feel.

The lyrics sit in the middle of the most absolutely intimate, vulnerable, confessional space ... but at the same time grapple with huge, macro-, social phenomena (that sounds awful and technical but it's not at all.)

Her voice just complements it perfectly: it *is* intimate, vulnerable, confessional, yet at the same time big and sweeping in its own way.

The musical arrangements are mostly sparse yet have a simmering energy and pulse... and the sparseness allows for a certain elegance when another layer is added (the sax on "Robber", for instance).

The opener, "Robber" is a favorite song of mine for the year so far, for sure and a good example of everything that's great about the writing and execution on the album -- when the sax slides in? Makes what is already an excellent song just other-worldly... https://youtu.be/OJ9SYLVaIUI

And it has what might be the most brutal song of the year for me so far: "Trust" -- just a devastating lyric delivered just perfectly against a a slow track that ebbs and flows, builds and falls back at all the right moments: https://youtu.be/nHY0luoxn9k

I don't know. This is not my most played record and it won't be. But there's a certain type of album that just feels bigger than it has any right being, that hits at something raw and pure and both of the moment but timeless. They don't come along very often and of course they're different for everyone. But this is one of those records for me... this is a stop everything and really listen record.

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~