nekocasecyclone.jpgI just got my review copy of Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone (due out March 3 on Anti- Records) in the mail and our always industrious editor Mark Baumgarten encouraged me to live-blog my first impressions. I’d just like to note that, generally, I listen to an album many, many times before opining in print. But this is the internet and it’s prone to unconventionality. Consider this a pre-review. Hold onto your hats. She didn’t name this disc after tornadoes for nothing.

1.  “This Tornado Loves You” - I like it already. When she hit’s the line “I want you,” she draws the word “you” out with an extra special airiness, like a far-off lovesick tornado brushing through town in search of its human lover. Lyrically, this is weird shit, but if anyone’s going to pull off a fairytale about a tornado falling in love with a woman, it’s Case. Sonically, the quick and monotonous, persistent banjo picking in the background makes me think of a storm picking up scrap metal and tossing it. It’s a nice effect. This tornado is an obsessed stalker of a storm, let’s just leave it at that.

2. “The Next Time You Say Forever” - Now I’m going to think every love song on this record is being sung by a tornado. “You tremble, you stumble, you scrape up your palms” sounds like something a tornado would say to its wrong-doing lover. This song is really short and ends way sooner than I’m ready to let it end. I’m disappointed and feel a little cheated, but isn’t that the point? That’s exactly what the song is about.

3.  “People Got a Lotta Nerve” - I’ve already heard this song a thousand times because it’s the first single. It’s not my favorite song she’s ever done, but I love the way she lets phrases like “killer whales” just tumble out. She’s a great vocalist in that she delivers words the way they’re intended, channeling their inherent rhythm and implicit meanings. I don’t understand this song yet, so I’ll say no more.

4. “Polar Nettles” - Again, I’m picturing a heartbroken tornado when she sings, “He takes his dinner in the back, love sick…” Poor tornado. There’s some weird guitar stuff going on here, like something blown in on an unwelcome storm. This is another song that ends before I’m ready to let it go.

5. “Vengeance is Sleeping” - Considering the title of this song, the pretty, folksy finger-picking guitar that opens it makes me chuckle a bit.  I imagine this tune being sung by the tornado’s woman. There are several pianos in the background. This song is far too full of sound and meaning for me to explain it to you during a first listen. Here’s the song that makes me realize there is way too much to this record to possibly hear, notice, or understand after one spin. Note to self: listen to this album a dozen more times, at least, before forming an opinion.

6.  “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth” - First off, this is sound advice. But, even though I know Neko Case to be a fan of the earth and its creatures, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not an environmentalist’s lament. No, this is about tornadoes, after all. Damn, she doesn’t waste any time building this song as big as it can be. She just touches down and goes to town.

7.  “Middle Cyclone” - A country song! Smack dab in the middle of the album. “Can’t give up acting tough / It’s all that I’m made of / Can’t scrape together quite enough / to ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love.” Poor tornado. After “Never Turn Your Back,” this song is so sparsely arranged. I can’t tell if that’s a harpsichord or a xylophone, but when it comes in, it turns this into the saddest song you’ve ever heard. It’s so well-instrumentalized that when the harpsichord or xylophone or whatever it is goes away, the rest of the song longs for its return.

8. “Fever” - What is that sound? It’s like someone clinking a spoon around a glass mug. There’s a thick, watery twang on the guitar to make it sound so sloppy it’s almost out of tune but not quite. The drums are on a steady 4/4 that trips every now and then. The harmonies are so tight they’re dangerous. I’m too focused on all the weird sonic experimentation, trying to figure out how such chaos can be so perfect and measured, to focus on the lyrics. I’ll catch them on my fifth or sixth listen, I’m sure.

9. “Magpie to the Morning” - This is almost a country song, too, but not quite. It’s simple and understated, but deceptively so. I can hear things in the background that will jump out at me later. This is the first listen, though, and the song is content to come across as just vocals and guitar, drums for the sake of keeping time. Her voice is so milky at the top of her range: “Mocking bird sings in the middle of the night / all his songs are stolen so he hides.”

10. “I’m an Animal” - In Paste magazine this month, Case talks about how people always complain that she never sings love songs. She claims that there are a lot of love songs on this record, they’re just her style of love songs. Her style would be weird and dark and full of wackadoo imagery that other wackadoo people will understand and love. This is one of those love songs, and I love it.

11. “Prison Girls” - I’m starting to feel like this album could take me three years to absorb completely. That’s probably good for Neko Case, because I and others like me will not start wondering when the hell she’ll release another CD until 2012. If she gets another one out before then, we’ll all be pleasantly surprised.

12. “Don’t Forget Me” - I’m not going to lie. I’m a sucker for so many pianos being played in a single song. “Keep your clothes on,” she sings, “and don’t forget me.” This is different from every other song on the disc. By now, some time has passed and our poor, lonely tornado is watching the leaves fall from his basement apartment, remembering when he had that human lover. It’s so sentimental and honest, verging on an actual normal person love song. This could be my favorite tune on the whole album. That’ll probably change on the second listen.

13.  “The Pharoahs” - I imagine this is another song from the point of view of the tornado’s lady lover. She’s having second thoughts about having left him. Gosh, when she sings “wanting, wanting, wanting,” I start wanting. That’s how this one feels.  There’s an organ that keeps going after the rest of the song has stopped. It’s a little embarrassing, like holding on too long to a lover that doesn’t want you anymore.

14. “Red Tide” - I now know for sure that this is a record I need to listen to over and over. Not only because it’s good (which it is), but also because there is so much going on. I hate the rain, too.

15. “Marais La Nuit” - Crickets. All that’s left after a tornado sweeps through? The awkward silence when you realize your heart is broke? The sudden reassurance that, even in the darkness, you’re not alone? A reminder that, even if you turn your back on mother earth, she doesn’t turn her back on you? It goes on long enough that a definite rhythm emerges, if you’re like me and you look for rhythm and syncopation in everyday sounds. If not, maybe it’s just the nice weird track at the end. My cat is so confused. It’s more than 30 minutes of crickets. Meditate, or something. Call me a damn hippy, but this could be my new favorite track in the world.