Technically speaking, Neko Case isn't Canadian: she was born in Virginia and now lives in Vermont. But she's always felt like an honorary Canadian, thanks to the years she spent in Vancouver in the '90s. During those years, she played in beloved cuddlecore groups cub and Maow, started singing with the New Pornographers, and released debut solo album The Virginian.
Consequently, Case is particularly beloved here in Canada, and has many admirers and collaborators on this side of the border. With Case releasing her career-spanning compilation Wild Creatures this week through ANTI-, some of her Canadian musical peers have shared their thoughts on the musician and her songs. This includes her New Pornographers bandmates A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar (Destroyer), collaborators Carolyn Mark and Darryl Neudorf, and fellow roots songwriter Allison Russell.
Read what these notable Neko fans have to say about her below. These quotes come as part of the online accompaniment for Wild Creatures, which arrives tomorrow (April 22) along with the new track "Oh, Shadowless."
A.C. Newman (The New Pornographers)
It took me a while to realize that Neko is a genius. It happened in steps. Always cool, always funny, always interesting, that was self-evident from the beginning, but the genius slowly emerged. I first saw her at a backyard barbecue in Vancouver, where bands were playing. She was in Meow (later Maow, one of the worst band name changes in modern recorded history), and they played in fur bikinis and wore furry cat ears. Like cats. "Meow" is the sound a cat makes. After their last song, Neko came from behind the drum kit and go-go danced for a few seconds, then walked away. So I was intrigued. All I knew was that she was dating a friend of mine and that she came from Tacoma, WA. When we actually met a month or two later at a gig, we just hit it off. We were immediately fast friends, hanging out and listening to Vapors and Shocking Blue, no mention yet of playing music together.
Talk was beginning in our music circle about the fact that Neko had an unusually good voice. She asked me to work with her on a few songs for The Virginian. I felt like I did nothing, just played the chords that were self-evident from the melody she was singing but she gave me 16.67 percent of the writing credit. The songs struck me as good; I was very impressed at the time, but her voice was the star. I asked her to sing in my new musical project and she said "yes." We later became fairly popular.
Furnace Room Lullaby was a giant leap forward in her writing. "Porchlight" and "Set Out Running" in particular jumped out at me. She asked me to tour with her as one of the Boyfriends and we started learning new songs like "Favorite," "Stinging Velvet" and "Make Your Bed." I thought they were three of her best songs yet. She was clearly evolving at a rapid pace. Soon she would devour us all.
Then a few years later she made Fox Confessor and basically did devour us all. The lyricism and musicality of it was off the charts. Middle Cyclone somehow built on it. It was clear as day: she was a genius. How the hell did that happen? Damnedest thing.
Dan Bejar (Destroyer, the New Pornographers)
Neko's approach to arrangements and ambience is equal parts melodic and jarring, and I'm always surprised by the turns they take. It is fearless music. It is urgent art, maybe the most urgent body of songs of the last 20 years. That's a bold statement, but she's in the running. We make a mess of ourselves, and others, and the Earth, and Neko sings these incredibly eloquent odes to that fact.
Carolyn Mark
Miss Neko: part fireball, part siren... The pealing laughter, should you manage to tickle her magpie eye, feels like hitting the jackpot. When she holds you in her tractor beam you just wanna stay forever. Thanks for the memories, Kiki! Flying to NYC for CMJ; caught in the Corridor of Concern in Bloomington, IN; she, serenading me through the vocal booth glass above the flashing neon Save-On-Meats sign in East Vancouver; singing into our tequila-soaked underpants on New Year's Day of the millennium in Edmonton; three-part harms with La Hogan on Hallowe'en at the Hideout in Chicago; singing with the trains in Tucson, AZ; giggling with Rigby, that mastermind.
She had a dream that we were a traveling duo that wore beauty pageant sashes and shared a pair of tap shoes and the Corn Sisters were born, leaving a trail of rumpled bedding and broken roadkill hearts. Wild Creature indeed.
Darryl Neudorf on "Star Witness"
This song is completely autobiographical. Neko had told me the heart-wrenching story one unforgettable evening a few years previous, so when I heard that first line for the first time, it hit me hard. I was choking back tears by the time the chorus arrived. I once recall hearing an interview with Sam Phillips. He was asked: "What is wrong with popular music today?" He replied: "There's not enough need in it." Neko needed to write this song. I knew this one was extra special to her and I poured my heart and soul into helping her manifest her vision for it. Thankfully she was very patient with me, because it took me a while to get there.
Allison Russell on "A Widow's Toast"
Nestled in the liminal spaces between the Hidden Canon and complex personal histories. A melody you're sure you remember from another life or a Robbie Burns night or a Quebecois coureur-de-bois chansonnier singalong. Ancient distilled subplots of the universal human experience stirring beneath the deceptively simple archetypal poetry. Are the women grieving or rejoicing in the thick absence of their men? Their youth? An immutable truth? "Widow's Toast" is Neko Case at her inscrutable and relatable, emotionally resonant, timeless, expansively layered finest. Slip stream, fever dream, ancient lay of an astral traveler — an artist of substance and mystery in full control of her powers. "Truth slips away… faster than the speed of gravity… better times are coming still." Amen.
Paul Rigby on "Maybe Sparrow"
With over four minutes of silence from Garth Hudson's keyboard room, [Neko and I] made the call to stop tape and ask if there was a problem. He answered with a question as to the origin of the sparrow, "African or American variety?" We looked at each other and answered American, we suppose. He had to ask in order to play the correct bird call on the organ, which he did! "Don't wanna look ridiculous and play the wrong call!" he said. What a mind and lesson!"
Consequently, Case is particularly beloved here in Canada, and has many admirers and collaborators on this side of the border. With Case releasing her career-spanning compilation Wild Creatures this week through ANTI-, some of her Canadian musical peers have shared their thoughts on the musician and her songs. This includes her New Pornographers bandmates A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar (Destroyer), collaborators Carolyn Mark and Darryl Neudorf, and fellow roots songwriter Allison Russell.
Read what these notable Neko fans have to say about her below. These quotes come as part of the online accompaniment for Wild Creatures, which arrives tomorrow (April 22) along with the new track "Oh, Shadowless."
A.C. Newman (The New Pornographers)
It took me a while to realize that Neko is a genius. It happened in steps. Always cool, always funny, always interesting, that was self-evident from the beginning, but the genius slowly emerged. I first saw her at a backyard barbecue in Vancouver, where bands were playing. She was in Meow (later Maow, one of the worst band name changes in modern recorded history), and they played in fur bikinis and wore furry cat ears. Like cats. "Meow" is the sound a cat makes. After their last song, Neko came from behind the drum kit and go-go danced for a few seconds, then walked away. So I was intrigued. All I knew was that she was dating a friend of mine and that she came from Tacoma, WA. When we actually met a month or two later at a gig, we just hit it off. We were immediately fast friends, hanging out and listening to Vapors and Shocking Blue, no mention yet of playing music together.
Talk was beginning in our music circle about the fact that Neko had an unusually good voice. She asked me to work with her on a few songs for The Virginian. I felt like I did nothing, just played the chords that were self-evident from the melody she was singing but she gave me 16.67 percent of the writing credit. The songs struck me as good; I was very impressed at the time, but her voice was the star. I asked her to sing in my new musical project and she said "yes." We later became fairly popular.
Furnace Room Lullaby was a giant leap forward in her writing. "Porchlight" and "Set Out Running" in particular jumped out at me. She asked me to tour with her as one of the Boyfriends and we started learning new songs like "Favorite," "Stinging Velvet" and "Make Your Bed." I thought they were three of her best songs yet. She was clearly evolving at a rapid pace. Soon she would devour us all.
Then a few years later she made Fox Confessor and basically did devour us all. The lyricism and musicality of it was off the charts. Middle Cyclone somehow built on it. It was clear as day: she was a genius. How the hell did that happen? Damnedest thing.
Dan Bejar (Destroyer, the New Pornographers)
Neko's approach to arrangements and ambience is equal parts melodic and jarring, and I'm always surprised by the turns they take. It is fearless music. It is urgent art, maybe the most urgent body of songs of the last 20 years. That's a bold statement, but she's in the running. We make a mess of ourselves, and others, and the Earth, and Neko sings these incredibly eloquent odes to that fact.
Carolyn Mark
Miss Neko: part fireball, part siren... The pealing laughter, should you manage to tickle her magpie eye, feels like hitting the jackpot. When she holds you in her tractor beam you just wanna stay forever. Thanks for the memories, Kiki! Flying to NYC for CMJ; caught in the Corridor of Concern in Bloomington, IN; she, serenading me through the vocal booth glass above the flashing neon Save-On-Meats sign in East Vancouver; singing into our tequila-soaked underpants on New Year's Day of the millennium in Edmonton; three-part harms with La Hogan on Hallowe'en at the Hideout in Chicago; singing with the trains in Tucson, AZ; giggling with Rigby, that mastermind.
She had a dream that we were a traveling duo that wore beauty pageant sashes and shared a pair of tap shoes and the Corn Sisters were born, leaving a trail of rumpled bedding and broken roadkill hearts. Wild Creature indeed.
Darryl Neudorf on "Star Witness"
This song is completely autobiographical. Neko had told me the heart-wrenching story one unforgettable evening a few years previous, so when I heard that first line for the first time, it hit me hard. I was choking back tears by the time the chorus arrived. I once recall hearing an interview with Sam Phillips. He was asked: "What is wrong with popular music today?" He replied: "There's not enough need in it." Neko needed to write this song. I knew this one was extra special to her and I poured my heart and soul into helping her manifest her vision for it. Thankfully she was very patient with me, because it took me a while to get there.
Allison Russell on "A Widow's Toast"
Nestled in the liminal spaces between the Hidden Canon and complex personal histories. A melody you're sure you remember from another life or a Robbie Burns night or a Quebecois coureur-de-bois chansonnier singalong. Ancient distilled subplots of the universal human experience stirring beneath the deceptively simple archetypal poetry. Are the women grieving or rejoicing in the thick absence of their men? Their youth? An immutable truth? "Widow's Toast" is Neko Case at her inscrutable and relatable, emotionally resonant, timeless, expansively layered finest. Slip stream, fever dream, ancient lay of an astral traveler — an artist of substance and mystery in full control of her powers. "Truth slips away… faster than the speed of gravity… better times are coming still." Amen.
Paul Rigby on "Maybe Sparrow"
With over four minutes of silence from Garth Hudson's keyboard room, [Neko and I] made the call to stop tape and ask if there was a problem. He answered with a question as to the origin of the sparrow, "African or American variety?" We looked at each other and answered American, we suppose. He had to ask in order to play the correct bird call on the organ, which he did! "Don't wanna look ridiculous and play the wrong call!" he said. What a mind and lesson!"
