Best Case
Of her three solo albums, country singer Neko Case favors Blacklisted, the one she just finished recording. But she admits that her love for the album has more to do with the fun she had making it than anything else. “When you make a record, you’re too close to it to know what it sounds like,” she says. “But I really enjoyed the experience, and it doesn’t horrify me to hear it.”
She was in good company for the recording sessions, having roped in a set of talented friends to join her. Singer Kelly Hogan and cellist Joey Burns both contribute to the album’s layered songs. “Not everybody’s parts were spelled out,” Case says. “People were just allowed to do what they do naturally.”
The process might have been a good time for Case and her friends, but the results, though captivating, are like the kind of fun old friends have when they reunite for a funeral. It feels good, but only because it lifts you out of something that feels awful. Unlike 2000’s Furnace Room Lullaby, on which Case belts out love songs that make her sound like a glutton for punishment with a bring-it-on attitude, Blacklisted‘s lyrics hint at defeat.
“It’s kind of a homesick feeling,” Case says of the inspiration for Blacklisted. “But you don’t know where you’re homesick for.” Case steadily takes on unsettling themes such as loneliness and a disbelief in love. Her clear voice rises slowly, as though climbing backward up a slide, refusing to let the gravity of the lyrics pull her down. From haunting slow songs like “Outro for Bees” (set to buzzing cello strings) to faster tunes such as “I Missed the Point,” the album is heartbreaking. How will you know when you’ve found me at last? Case asks on “I Wish I Was the Moon.” Cuz I’ll be the one, be the one, be the one/With my heart in my lap/I’m so tired; I’m so tired/And I wish I was the moon tonight.
From her demeanor on the phone with the Pitch, however, Case doesn’t seem worn out by her work — she sounds excited by it. A little fatigue is understandable, though. She’s been so busy collaborating with fellow members of the New Pornographers and opening for major acts such as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds that she’s barely been able to fit in her own work. “I really don’t know how I get it all done,” she says. “A total lack of free time, boyfriends and children probably helps.”
Given Case’s powerful voice, which she pushes to a place where most vocalists crack, listeners might imagine that the nomadic singer has spent a lifetime devoted to strengthening her craft. But she hasn’t. “I play music because I went to art school,” she says, laughing as she explains that what started as a gig on the side somehow evolved into a full-time job. “I started touring, and I just never stopped. One day I realized I was a musician.”
The profession suits her. “It’s good to be your own boss,” she says. “And it’s good to know you can do something positive without fucking someone else over.”
