Such Deadly Wolves Round the Town Tonight

If the State Theater’s new managing director, Dan Smalls never brought in another concert, I’d be indebted to him for two shows. The first would be last year’s Solomon Burke show, and the second would be the upcoming Neko Case show. I might write something about Mr. Burke at another time, but for now, I’ve got Neko Case on the brain.

From my understanding, Case made her mark on the Canadian music scene pretty quickly, first with the punk outfit Maow and then on her own. With almost clockwork regularity, Case’s solo shows, backed by high octane cowpunkers like the Sadies or the Blacks, would include the performer draping her panties on the mic stand, which is certainly a way to make an impression.

The Virginian, her first album with the loose collective of musicians known as Her Boyfriends was an outing in the country, a deep homage to the likes of Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells. The Boyfriends in question have included Carl Newman, Ron Sexsmith and members of Calexico, along with girlfriends Kelly Hogan and Carolyn Mark. The Virginian included covers from Scott Walker and Ernest Tubbs and was impressive if not innovative. The album’s cover presented Case as a chanteuse, a skilled interpreter of other people’s songs. It wasn’t until Furnace Room Lullaby that Case’s songwriting moved to the front, with amped up odes to her burned out Tacoma home and lightning fast husky come-ons like “Whip the Blankets” that had only been hinted at on the previous album’s “Misfire”. Her ballad work was sparse and heartbreaking, carrying entire compositions on her stolid alto.

Case made a leap forward on the next album, Blacklisted, which no longer bore any reference to Her Boyfriends. Comprised mostly of originals with a pair of well-chosen covers, the album is dark country soul, a constant threat of a knife wrapped in silk. It also sees Case experimenting with composition and production tricks, as songs rise eerily out of radio static and fade back into a buzzing of bees. Her rendition of “Running Out of Fools”, I hate to admit, tops Aretha Franklin’s original in its breathy vitriol and her plea of “pretty girls, you’re too good for this” sounds like the final shaking off of her country chanteuse persona.

I’m leaving plenty out here, including her work with indie supergroup the New Pornographers, collaborations with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts (better known to the world at large as the Mekons) and the Sadies as well as two fairly brilliant live albums (particularly Tigers Have Spoken, which includes a couple knock down Loretta Lynn covers and a heartbreaking rendition of “Wayfaring Stranger” backed by a chorus of one hundred and fifty panel discussion participants), but only because I’m rushing to get to her most recent studio effort, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. Dark and lyrically strange in ways one would have been unable to predict, the album drops brilliant lyrics into compositions that range from Bacharach pop syncopation to twisted gospel call and response. With this album, Case moved a step ahead of the rest of the singer songwriter crop. While contemporaries like Gillian Welch and Cat Power have found their voices largely by adopting genres, country in Welch’s case and, most recently, blues in the case of Cat Power, Case moves effortlessly in and out of genres even within single songs, blurring them into something uniquely her own. Tinged with dark lyrics that seem at once obscure and transparent, Case’s work creates its own terms, inviting the listener into a lyrical mythology shot through with musical aspects that seem simultaneously familiar and strange.