Monday, December 26, 2011

8.) All of It Was Mine - The Weather Station (Top 20 Albums of 2011)












All Of It Was Mine
The Weather Station
You’ve Changed Records.


August was turning over when All Of It Was Mine arrived in my mailbox. The evenings were finally cooling down and I’d welcomed it in to flutter the windowsill pages of the SCQ office. I was due to marry in a month – our apartment was piled with diagrams of tables, waiting envelopes, and empty formal wear – but Tamara Lindeman kept me calm. As I escaped into the office to listen to music by the glow of a faint lamp, it was relieving to hear Lindeman absorbing the silence of her open kitchen (on ‘Came So Easy’) or yearning for connection over telephone lines (‘Running Around Asking’). I was basking in solitude, hers and mine.

The first night I heard All Of It Was Mine, I probably played the whole thing through at least four times. It was easy, in part because the recording’s only half an hour long, but mostly on account of its comforting eloquence. Like an autumnal blanket or a bedroom corner one flocks to after hard days, All Of It Was Mine puts all of the daily wrestling we endure into serene perspective. “It was hard but I found my place,” Lindeman repeats over the crashing ‘Nobody’ and it’s a cathartic refrain she has truly earned.

1 comment:

You Are My Symphonic said...

Another great release from You've Changed Records. Like Daniel Romano it has a haunting quality. On the list!