Tamara Lindeman’s music as The Weather Station seems to expand and contract with every movement. The long-running project broke through in 2021 as fifth album Ignorance grew her folk-rock milieu to encompass the sounds of sophisti-pop acts like The Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout, while 2022’s companion record How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars pared back her arrangements to nearly nothing. On her seventh album, Humanhood, Lindeman has blown up her sound yet again: Alongside the nocturnal vibe she so expertly cultivated across Ignorance, these 13 tracks—initially recorded straight to tape over the course of two improvisational sessions in late 2023—encompass freewheeling ’60s psychedelic pop, darkly shaded jazz, and flurries of spoken-word sound collage. Joining her trusty supporting players from the Ignorance sessions is a who’s who of left-field sounds, including orchestral-folk auteur Sam Amidon and ambient-saxophone jazz sensation Sam Gendel. At the centre of it all, Lindeman’s ability to pull back and let silence briefly reign remains as breathtaking as her most acrobatic vocal moments. Her lyrical focus picks up from where she left off on the previous two Weather Station records, pivoting specifically from the encroaching threat of climate change towards an episode of depersonalisation she experienced while contemplating the world’s ever-evolving ills. What results is an album that’s contemplative and soul-searching, as Lindeman avoids finding easy answers and instead seems to channel her thought process in real time. “I don’t know quite where to begin,” she sings over the brushed drums and elegiac piano of Humanhood’s quietly devastating closer, “Sewing”. “I know it don’t look like I’m doing anything.” Quite the opposite, in fact.