Neko Case announces new album
NEKO CASE ANNOUNCES NEW STUDIO ALBUM NEON GREY MIDNIGHT GREEN
OUT 26 SEPTEMBER VIA ANTI-
SHARES LEAD SINGLE ‘WRECK’
“Yet another high-point in Case’s unstintingly stirring career”
5/5 The Guardian
“Renowned for her indomitable singing, [Case] has always demonstrated an equally commanding voice as a songwriter”
Pitchfork, The 200 Most Important Artists of Pitchfork’s First 25 Years
Listen to ‘Wreck’ here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLwev5sWQXM
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As if cosmically summoned, every handful of years the GRAMMY-nominated iconoclast Neko Case breaks to the surface with a new album and reminds listeners that she is one of our greatest living songwriters – perpetually becoming more fearless and adventurous. Arriving 26 September via ANTI-, today she announces Neon Grey Midnight Green, her simultaneously biggest-sounding and most intimate-feeling album yet. Self-produced by Case, the first single ‘Wreck’ is an exploration of the soul-shattering feeling that is finding love with another fallible human being. “I know it’s selfish / But you’re the sun now! / And it’s a big job / One you didn’t apply for… / But maybe you want this too? / Do I look like the sun to you?” she enquires as the music lifts to the sky.
Her first new music this decade, Neon Grey Midnight Green follows 2018’s Hell-On, an eclectic piece that The Guardian called “a pitch-perfect roar of female defiance”. Her latest is no less urgent but carries a deep blue streak of sentimentality in its incandescent blaze. The album pays tribute to the musicians, producers and activists who have passed away in recent years, all artists Neko was lucky enough to call not just influences but close friends. She rises on the shoulders of her musical heroes, using the tools they lent her to create her most inspired work.
More than any of her past albums, Neon Grey Midnight Green was laid down live with a full band – even breaths and shirt-sleeve rustlings were kept in the final mix as a reminder that “humans were here”. The album’s recording primarily took place at Case’s own Vermont studio, Carnassial Sound, with additional sessions in Denver, Colorado with the PlainsSong Chamber Orchestra and in Portland, Oregon with Tucker Martine. “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. It is my vision. It is my veto power. It is my taste”.
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 — the moon and the stars, bees, lions and magpies. Should you encounter a wayward soul who has never heard her music, you might respond, “well, she once sang from the perspective of a tornado”, as if to say: there’s no physical form that could stop her potent voice and evocative storytelling.
Case’s memoir The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You: A Memoir was released in January, reaching #5 on the New York Times nonfiction best sellers list and receiving 5/5 from Mojo. Raised “by two dogs and a space heater” in Washington state, the book’s vibrant wordplay and unflinching humour were a familiar balm to fans; as The Washington Post wrote in a glowing review, it “hits you in the same places her songs do: heart and gut, funny bone and sad bone.” Said Case of her memoir: “I hope my story will cast a spell of love, invite everyone inside, and smash the illusion that we have no connection to each other”.
Case has also been hard at work composing the musical adaptation of the 1991 Academy Award-winning motion picture Thelma & Louise after being personally selected by the original screenwriter and Academy Award winner Callie Khouri.
In the week following the album’s release, Case and her band will embark on a US nationwide fall tour that starts 1 October in Woodstock, New York.
Pre-order Neon Grey Midnight Green here:
https://nekocase.ffm.to/neongreymidnightgreen
Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz
High-res images can be found here
Neon Grey Midnight Green tracklist:
1. Destination
2. Tomboy Gold
3. Wreck
4. Winchester Mansion of Sound
5. An Ice Age
6. Neon Grey Midnight Green
7. Oh, Neglect…
8. Louise
9. Rusty Mountain
10. Little Gears
11. Baby, I’m Not (A Werewolf)
12. Match-Lit
Praise for Hell-On:
“Yet another high-point in Case’s unstintingly stirring career”
5/5 The Guardian
“Still a singer-songwriter like no other”
8/10 Uncut
“Hell-On, is her most conceptually diverse to date. The Lynchian atmospherics are at an all-time high, as is her creative ambition”
8/10 The Line of Best Fit
“Fascinating and creative”
4/5 The Independent
“Case throughout sings her vivid turns of phrase with skill and feelings”
4/5 FT
“[Neko Case] is on the form of her life”
4/5 The Skinny
“Neko Case remains a force of nature”
4/5 Record Collector
“Hell-On is a good demonstration of just how great she’s become”
4/5 MusicOMH