Canadian musician and actress Tamara Hope, better known to the music world under the moniker of her project “The Weather Station,” has been a steady presence in the indie scene for over a decade. Receiving particular acclaim following the release of 2021’s album Ignorance, The Weather Station has spent the intervening years refining a particular blend of indie, folk, and jazz, through to their newly released record Humanhood. “Mirror,” the album’s third track and most recent single, epitomizes that style, just as its accompanying video realizes it into a wider spectrum of the senses.

Beginning with some evocative, if reserved piano riffing and propelled forward by beats that balance an at-times almost frantic pace with a lower dynamic threshold, the intro of “Mirror” creates a sparse and immediate space into which Hope pours her demure, velveteen alto. The edges of this space peel back by steady degrees, opening up onto a lush backdrop of cinematic brass and strings, while the song’s equilibrium is occasionally unsettled by glitchy electronic textures or a brief return to the intro’s spartan instrumentation. This delicate balance finally breaks down into one final, ethereal harmony in the song’s closing moments, cascading into the inevitable silence of the fade.

The video released to accompany “Mirror” perfectly reflects the track’s intrinsic contrast between calm and clamor. Flashes of light illuminate singer Tamara Hope’s visage shrouded by tapestries and fabrics, and punctuate an otherwise dark and relatively unornamented frame like streaks of lightning through curtained mirror. This visually jarring, artfully ominous framing pairs flawlessly with the track’s atmosphere: that of a canned tumult beneath a lush calm.

Zeen is a next generation WordPress theme. It’s powerful, beautifully designed and comes with everything you need to engage your visitors and increase conversions.