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It’s been a minute since Neko Case released a full-length album, and new LP Neon Grey Midnight Green arrives as a statement of intent. Speaking with Kyle Meredith, Case frames the record as a celebration of music itself — the people who make it, the people who listen to it, and the strange, communal electricity that happens when those two groups meet in the same room. Coming on the heels of her autobiography, The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, the album stands deliberately on its own, less diary than manifesto, leaning into the idea that musicians, engineers, fans, and even the audience at a show all complete the same circuit. Listen to the episode above or wherever you get your podcasts.
That sense of connection runs through the album’s structure in ways even Case admits she didn’t fully clock until it was pointed out. The record opens with “Destination,” which is usually where you’d expect to end up at: “The people I’m singing about, they are the place they’re trying to go,” she explains. “They are the big deal. They are the event.” Elsewhere, songs like “Tomboy Gold” operate as shadows or companion pieces, refracting earlier moments through different perspectives. Case embraces the idea that listeners often hear things she didn’t set out to plant. “People will sometimes interpret my songs in ways that are so much more interesting than I interpreted them,” she says. “I don’t correct them because I want them to have that as their version of it.”
Sonically, Neon Grey Midnight Green rejects polish in favor of presence, intentionally sounding like “a bunch of people in a room.” It’s a choice Case connects to confidence earned the hard way. “I’m 55 now and I have so much confidence that I’ve never had before,” she says. “I really enjoy trusting myself. It is a great luxury and as a woman, it’s a triumph.” That trust extends beyond music into her worldview, whether she’s talking about indigenous ways of understanding our place in nature or her long-running affection for spiders, creatures she sees as unfairly maligned. “If we stop feeling like we’re the most important thing on Earth, we are happier,” she explains. “We are of the world. We are animals.” It’s a philosophy that hums beneath the record, grounding its dreamlike moments in something ancient, instinctive, and defiantly human.
Listen to Neko Case talk about Neon Grey Midnight Green and more in the new episode above or by watching the video below. You can also get tickets to Case’s upcoming tour dates here.
Keep up on all the latest episodes by following Kyle Meredith With… on your favorite podcast platform; plus, check out all the series on the Consequence Podcast Network.
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