When I was growing up back in the 70’s, it wasn’t unusual for an artist to have a Concept Album. They would take some idea or theme and write a number of songs at least vaguely in line with the concept. Of course all those records can really be traced to Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, still the very definition of a Concept Album. My theory is that Neko Case’s latest effort, Middle Cyclone , is just such a recording. You don’t hear many concept albums these days, what with everyone downloading individual songs instead of buying the package. But how else to explain the last song on the disc, Marais La Nuit , that is 31+ minutes of just crickets chirping and insects buzzing.
OK, let’s start at the beginning. Middle Cyclone is clearly a Neko Case album. Her distinctive vocals anchor the entire disc. On Fox Confessor Brings the Flood , her previous offering, there was a fair amount of electronic addition/manipulation of the vocal track. Here, she’s doing it manually with most of the tracks having not just 1 or 2, but sometimes as many as 7 people singing. Add a little bit of production, and you have a very complex layering of sound that doesn’t come across as over-produced. The first cut, This Tornado Loves You is a great example of that. The next several tracks continue in that vein and everything has a comfortable Neko feel. Then, with the fifth song, Vengence Is Sleeping , she opts for a stripped down sound with just a single guitar and piano. It somehow feels right to then go into Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth , one of two songs on the disc not penned by Neko herself. Mother Earth took me back to college and Fairport Convention with all the layers of acoustic sound and orchestration of folk music.
This is probably a good time to mention Garth Hudson. As the keyboardist for The Band, he put his imprint on much of their material with the distinctive sound of his Lowry organ. He plays keyboards on only 4 of the tracks, and although he doesn’t get a producer credit anywhere, his influence can be noted on much of the latter half of the album. It all starts with Fever , the 8th track. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a vein of discordance starts to make itself felt. At first only in the background, it bursts front and center with Prison Girls , a song full of minor chords and frequent chord changes, a story, almost, about the personalities in the joint. The Pharaohs is a song co-written with the Sadies and featuring a rich orchestration and is perhaps the most aurally adventurous tune. And finally, except for the cricket song, Red Tide , with its Michael Stipe-ish lyrics, "the red tide is over, the mollusks have won".
And so what’s the Concept? Well, I didn’t get this job by actually knowing what I’m talking about so it’s just one man’s opinion. But I think Middle Cyclone owes a lot to growing up in small-town Canada (or America for that matter) where life starts out predictable and simple and as you grow up the realities of complex relationships and strange behaviors start to intrude. And what about the cricket song? In that part of our planet, for much of the year the last thing you hear before you fall asleep at night is the sound of the insects.
UPDATE: I read a Rolling Stone interview with Neko. They’re frogs from out behind her barn, not crickets.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.