Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

mp3: Dirty Knife
website: http://www.nekocase.com/

Why isn’t Neko a huge superstar by now? Sure, she’s popular, but she still doesn’t get the recognition she deserves. Yet from the moment I saw a preview of the Fox Confessor Brings The Flood artwork, I was completely in rapture with this album, and the music lived up to all expectations.

Unlike the other albums in my top four, which explore their ideas through lengthy dialogues and moments of musical grandeur, Neko opted to keep things simple. Her stories are powerful and almost hurtful at times, but she really squeezed the concepts on this album. The songs are shorter with less repetition—no verses and choruses repeating ad infinitum. This in turn often left me wanting, or yearning, for more, but it’s just how it is—a beautiful collection of music. And while it appeared way back last winter/spring, it remains firmly on my mind.

It was a joy to see songs from the album performed live too. I still think Dutch audiences are a bit too restrained for her tastes. She seems more nervous in front of a foreign audience than that of a native English-speaking crowd, but she oozes vocal magnificence and always travels with an excellent array of musicians too. It’s also due to the live performance that I chose ‘Dirty Knife’ to share. Far from being the most instant song on the album, it’s one of the most rewarding in the long term, and looking down from the balcony in Nighttown, I witnessed this performed with a delightful cymbal performance. You should always remember to appreciate good cymbal play.

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