She's about a mover

Neko Case has the sort of drop-dead gorgeous voice that commands silence. A naturally occurring extension of Patsy Cline's gutsy old-time country heartache, it emerges from her mouth disembodied and timeless, its sheer heft compelling everyone within earshot to shut up and listen. Not that the 31-year-old singer/songwriter would ever dream of demanding the same from an audience.

"It's their show, too. If they want to hang out at the bar, drink beer and talk to their friends, that's totally cool," says Case. "You can't take it personally."

It's the subtle contradictions that make Case such an infatuating study in contrast. She's the introvert who has trouble dissecting what makes her singing great, and who struggles with her country-noir chanteuse image and the attention it invites. She's the fiercely independent soul who left her home in Tacoma, Wash., at the age of 15 and found her way to Vancouver, British Columbia, where she played drums with punk outfits Cub and Maow. She's the wide-eyed vixen vamping it up corpse-like on the cover of 2000's Furnace Room Lullaby, the album that cemented her reputation as the voice of alt-country's future even as it championed the past. And she's the chatty, no-nonsense girl who's comfortable doing in-person interviews at home in her pajamas.

"As a kid, I really liked singing, but I was kind of shy," Case says. "But I think deep down, I was really an outgoing person — and I think it took me a long time to break out of that."

Back in 1999, Case donned baggy red pajamas for a photo shoot. In one picture, she's lying under a van, top hiked up, exposing her midriff to the elements. The vehicle doors are flung open to reveal a mattress, a dresser and a host of other personal possessions. A lone stereo receiver rests on the parking-lot asphalt nearby, and a passing airliner is frozen in the sky above. The shot made the cover of her latest release, Blacklisted.

"It was taken right when I moved to Chicago, and I hadn't even taken my stuff out of my van yet," Case says. "My friend Chris [Buck] from Toronto got hired to come out and take a picture of me for this magazine. So we went out to the airport — because I really like planes — and I said, 'Well, why don't we just take pictures of me with all my stuff; that would be funny.' Then I crawled under the van to get a piece of wire out of the wheel well."

The photo is appropriate when you consider that Blacklisted addresses, with an often forlorn eloquence, the perils of mobility — those crucial junctures in life when leaving isn't just the best option, it's the only option. "The red bells beckon you to ride, a handprint on the driver's side/It looks a lot like engine oil and tastes like bein' poor and small, and Popsicles in summer," Case sings on "Deep Red Bells," a fitfully nostalgic ode to perpetual homesickness.

An impressionistic travelogue, Blacklisted at once celebrates and debunks the transient lifestyle. It has the feel of a rambling testimonial — of cigarette burns and coffee rings on notebook paper, and 4 a.m. fits of inspiration fueled by sleep deprivation and the lingering adrenaline from that night's gig. At times, the passing scenery is disturbing ("Black birds frying on a wire"); other times it's breathtaking ("Like clouds rising from the sea, I'm sorry.").

But the view is always provocative, thanks, in no small part, to the contributions of a posse of Arizona desert rats, including Calexico's Joey Burns (guitar, cello, bass, accordion) and John Convertino (drums), and Giant Sand's Howe Gelb (keyboards). While the infamous experimental leanings of this bunch have little room to roam within these well-structured tunes, their love of spaghetti Western film scores, '50s and '60s jazz, and surf music colors in the vast emptiness, soothes the ache and fleshes out Case's languid melodies.

Co-produced by Case at Wavelab Studio in Tucson, Ariz., Blacklisted marks the singer's official coming out as a first-rate composer; she wrote all but three of the album's 13 tracks. Whereas the blustery, harder-edged Furnace Room Lullaby was more a collaborative showcase for Case's magisterial pipes, Blacklisted is the complete package — the artist as singer, songwriter and all-consuming presence. Even the two covers she chose to "fill in the blanks" — "Look for Me (I'll Be Around)" and "Runnin' Out of Fools" — seem sprung from her haunted mindset. Or at least written with her in mind.

"I was free to focus on experimenting," says Case of the recording process. "We tried a lot of new things, but it wasn't scary. I felt very supported and comfortable. There's something about the light in Arizona that makes you feel rather hopeful. Plus it was December and it was 75 degrees outside — which doesn't suck."

Born in northern Virginia, Case became a wanderer out of necessity after her parents' divorce. She endured the back-and-forth long-distance shuffle between Mom and Dad for as long as she could, and finally moved out on her own at 15. "I didn't have a good relationship with my parents. But I have to clarify that I didn't run away from home — I left home," says Case.

She eventually wound up in Vancouver, where she got an art school degree and gravitated toward the city's punk scene, taking a seat behind the drum kit with girl trio Maow for the sloppy, aptly titled The Unforgiving Sounds of Maow. "It was a nice thing to hide behind," says Case of her attraction to the instrument.

Case dabbled in singing and songwriting with Maow — and her dabbling gradually turned serious. Through it all, her love of true country was something she couldn't shake. So she mustered up the courage to go solo, assembling a backup band, Her Boyfriends, and signing with Chicago alt-country label Bloodshot. In 1997 she released her debut, The Virginian, a collection of originals and covers with a traditional honky-tonk bent. Furnace Room Lullaby came along three years later.

Along the way, Case acquired a slew of admirers, many who've become pals and collaborators — folks like Dallas Good (the Sadies) and former Atlantan Kelly Hogan, who contributed to Blacklisted. Her friendship with Zumpano's Carl Newman led to her work with acclaimed Canadian guitar-pop outfit New Pornographers. And there's also her trad-country pairing with Carolyn Mark as the Corn Sisters, which resulted in 2000's The Other Women.

Moving forward, Case will tour behind Blacklisted until 2003, and she'll try to eke out some studio time with New Pornographers. She'd also like to hone the developing guitar skills put to use in the studio for the first time on Blacklisted. Case also plays drums on one track, though her skills on the skins have long been eclipsed by that voice, which sounds equally impressive from the stage.

"The physical aspect of performing live feels incredible," says Case. "Have you ever looked at a cat stretching and go, 'God, I wish I could do that'? It feels like you're releasing some tremendous pressure — or that your stretching some muscle but you don't really know where it is.

"It's like you're making your very own wind tunnel."

hobart.rowland@creativeloafing.com??