3 result(s) tagged “Neko Case”

• How ignorant are you? Cinemarati recently asked its readers:

  “What’s your big, embarrassing, Never-Seen-It movie?”

  To help you out, you can use this tool to track your viewing history against the Internet Movie Database’s “top 250” list. (My list.) My guilty admission is that I’ve yet to see Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) despite its reputation.
• At Slate, rather than mocking people for movies they haven’t seen, Sam Anderson judges his friends by what they want to see. What does your Netflix queue say about you?

With the release of a new album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, out this week, it’s time to catch up with Culture Snob favorite Neko Case. Harp magazine has a wonderfully perceptive interview here, and I’ve posted an audio recording of my interview with her last summer here (14 minutes, mp3, 2.7 megabytes). (My original article is here.)

Neko Case is a siren whose seductive voice might be the single most alluring instrument in music today — clear, robust, sexy, self-possessed, and expressive, with an endearing hint of nasally imperfection.

On her solo albums, that voice is the centerpiece of beautifully arranged country-tinged songs, without a hint of irony. They’re dark, atmospheric, and — at their most world-weary — nearly spectral in their power to haunt. And the 34-year-old singer/songwriter can belt without any sign of strain, or lay on the syrup of an old-time country crooner.

In concert, she is eerily powerful, summoning gooseflesh with her intense, full-bodied, and seemingly effortless singing. Only late in a 90-minute set are there any signs of fatigue, as she holds onto the microphone for support and gets ever-so-slightly loose with her enunciation.

And when she’s sick of being Neko, she can retreat into being a Pornographer.