By Nicole Villeneuve

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice.

Two years after local singer/songwriter Tamara Lindeman shocked us into feeling with The Line, the stark debut of her project the Weather Station, she returns with an album that isn’t as instantly devastating—but it’s just as moving. It turns out that’s the most immediate thing about this, and so far, all Weather Station releases: Lindeman possesses something special, something never quite tangible, something quite gentle, in fact, and you can hear it in her music loud and clear.
For All Of It Was Mine, out next week, Lindeman started and stopped the songs until eventually taking them to Welland, Ontario, to record with Daniel Romano (Attack in Black, Daniel, Fred & Julie). It’s a fitting pairing, as Romano himself is one of the best modern Canadian folk torchbearers, with his mind set deep in our country’s roots music past and both feet firmly in the present. She would also eventually release the new album on his label, You’ve Changed Records, adding another stellar release to their roster while giving the record a home in which it’ll no doubt thrive. If on the last album Lindeman was wounded, on this one she’s scarred—on “Came So Easy” she sings, “So sure I was needless,” and it’s a little bit pointed and a little bit vulnerable.
Lindeman’s at her best there and on opener “Everything I Saw” (streaming above), if for no other reason than the faster arrangements. Some of the second half of the album does fade a bit, but on “Traveler” and the more fleshed out “Know It To See It,” she’s evoking Joni Mitchell even more than she did the last time out, looping her way around the words with a more forthright confidence. This release offsets her gentler musings and shows once again that the well of her talents runs very deep, and currently, also very full.