Purchase, Middle Cyclone, by Neko Case
I’ll take any opportunity talk about Neko Case. Ex punk
rocker, singer songwriter, the best part of The new Pornographers—Case has an
impressive resume, and that is before you even get to her solo work, which
comprises her most stunning work. But what is most stunning about Case is this:
she has a powerful and unique voice that is its own vital, yet distinctly
separate instrument in whatever band she is performing front side. There is
almost a lack of femininity to her vocal range, and while I wouldn’t use the
word strident for what that word lacks, or rather says, as connotation, there
is something moving and arresting in Case’s voice, when she performs in a
softer register or really letting it out. Nor can I call her voice strong,
though it is just that. Strong doesn’t quite characterize the way she rises
above the music. Case sings like no one I’ve ever listened to. She can be as
gentle in the soprano harmony of a purred hum fill, as she can be belting out
the hey na nas in a shout out chorus.
Case does country, but in her own unique way, so labels
don’t work. But, her music travels far from that particular genre. Her last few
releases defy comparison and I strive for a single adjective in which to place
her, style-wise. Like the greatest of artists, she is elusive while being
almost identifiable. Her sound ranges from big, to folky, to antique, in a
wonderful, nostalgic-for-something-you-don’t-know kind of way. I read an
interview once with her, where she talked as she wandered her barn which was
filled with old pianos and organs and other vintage instruments, all of which
were going to be put to use on her next project. That struck me again as I
listened: Case’s music is full of sound—sound in that sense that she is making
a landscape, building it carefully, with her voice as the central spine, but
then adding a plethora of other, beautiful harmonies. Again, the sound is
multitudinous, an intense and dramatic choir of resonating aural portraits. Almost
indefinable, but so perfect as to exist within its own special genre.
And this says nothing yet of her writing, perhaps her very
strongest skill. Neko Case is a poet, with the pure of luck of having a
brilliant voice. Her work is imagistic, and profound ideas march in metaphor
across a unique lyrical world. She talks often of animals (foxes, killer
whales), she talks of weather (sideways snow), she takes ordinary moments and
suffuses them with comparisons and images that carry the brilliance of fresh
paint on a canvas. Put her imagistic narratives up against sounds that come
from strange places and the listener comes across 3-minute-and-something
masterpiece after 3-minute-and-something masterpiece. Case reminds me in many ways of the great
imagist poets such as James Wright with her use of not just the image, but the deep image that carries with it the
impression of the thing it is picturing and the emotional after-image that the
thing means, like what happens when someone snaps your picture with a flash—the
impression lasts, and deepens to a profundity that might not be immediately
evident. But, again, the image abides, hovering in your thought, coloring your
emotional tie to the music. Her song, “Deep Red Bells” comes to mind, with the
image of a hand print left on the vinyl seat of a car, made fro ma sweating
palm, there but for a moment, then gone.
“Prison Girls” is another perfect example of Case’s writing
prowess. The song itself, from 2009’s Middle
Cyclone, is smoky, languid and watery in a way. It’s dark and slinky, with
a reverbed guitar that carries on as an eerie chime throughout. Like much of
Case’s music, there is a rise toward a major chord-driven chorus that rises out
of the stark, minor key whisp and sway, before sinking back down again. Case
makes music with odd, rhythmic sensations; the sounds always remind me
sonically of a breeze through a window. I’ll let you do with that image what
you will. As far as the lyrics, “Prison Girls” is gorgeous image poetry with a
narrative that is hard to pin down. I thought a lot about what she’s talking
about here, aside from the obvious setting of a women’s prison. But like much
of Case’s lyrics, the meaning is subservient to the beauty of the imagery and
thus the picture she draws and the visual spell she casts. Case creates
atmosphere often without filling in the details, and “Prison Girls” is
mysterious by flirting around an unnamed central theme. But the mood she
creates forgives the lack of through line. Take for instance:
Awakened by a droning voice
I love your long shadows and your gunpowder
eyes
Is it a lady of is it a man
Humming helicopters through the
blades of a fan
There is a haunted ambiance that carries “Prison Girls”,
with that line, I love your long shadows
and your gunpowder eyes, sung as a repeated refrain. It hints at menacing
guards, looming over helpless prisoners; it brings to mind dark, lonely places;
it puts the listener in a place they don’t want to be. But, good writing can
carry the reader, or listener, to places they don’t want to go, but go anyway.
Prison girls are not impressed
They're the ones that have to clean this mess
They've traded more for cigarettes
Than I've managed to express
They're the ones that have to clean this mess
They've traded more for cigarettes
Than I've managed to express
You don’t really need to know exactly what she’s talking
about. Like any great artist, the image, the impression, is its own entity and
exists solely for the watcher, listener, to understand as they will. With Neko
Case, however, the music will entrance you and much like waking up from a dream
you don’t understand, the impression is sometimes more important than the meaning.
