Every handful of years, Neko Case resurfaces with a new album and reminds listeners that she is one of our greatest living songwriters – perpetually becoming more fearless and adventurous. This has been true throughout her more than 25-year career, where her indie-rock and country-noir sound has swelled and shrunk to fit the mood, but the impact she creates has never wavered. She brings a new run of the Neon Grey Midnight Green Tour to Northwest Arkansas on Monday, Nov. 2 at 7 pm with musical guest Destroyer.
Listening to Case’s music will teach you about this world – human nature’s cruelty, perseverance and terrifying beauty, but the natural world as well. “She has cultivated one of the most distinctive voices in American song,” Stereogum declared. “Her albums unravel like musical picaresque; restlessly digressive, bluntly funny, strange – but never in ways you’d anticipate.”
Initially entering the music scene as a drummer, she harnessed her songwriting prowess and figurative and literal voice in 1997 with her breakout debut album The Virginian followed by her first live album The Tigers Have Spoken.
The Grammy® -nominated iconoclast’s ninth LP, Neon Grey Midnight Green, is her biggest-sounding and most intimate-feeling album yet. Released last fall to immediate critical acclaim and declared an essential album in her catalog, the album was laid down live with a full band.
Her latest music is no less urgent but carries a deep blue streak of sentimentality. The album pays tribute to the musicians, producers and activists who have passed away in recent years – all artists Case was lucky enough to call not just influences but close friends. She rises on the shoulders of her musical heroes, using their tools to create her most inspired work.
“There are so few producers who are women, nonbinary or trans,” says Case, who identifies as gender fluid and uses she/her pronouns. “People don’t think of us as an option. I’m proud to say I produced this record.”
Her memoir, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You was released last January and reached No. 5 on The New York Times nonfiction best sellers list. Raised “by two dogs and a space heater” in Washington state, the book’s vibrant wordplay and unflinching humor were familiar to fans. Case has also been hard at work on original music for the forthcoming Thelma & Louise Broadway musical after being personally selected by the original screenwriter.