The N Files:Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

I often brag about the amount of music that I hold hostage on my computer. Here's a secret (probably pretty obvious): I haven't listened to most of it. I honestly have spent more time down...I mean obtaining copies from my friends to ever have the time to sit down and honestly listen to it. Since I felt the internet was tiring me (yet I'm back on) and I wanted to give my mind a refresher, I thought I'd listen to some of those neglected tunes, many of which are smart playlists in my iTunes.

Now where do I get this music. Well I breeze through the supposedly knowledgeable publications of the day like The Village Voice and such and see what they recommend. I have finally embraced that I have more of a black music focus, but I've always been open to what MTV used to play. My freshman year of high school was a serious grunge phase where I wrote Nirvana lyrics and did my best impression of the kid from the Pearl Jam video so I have quite an eclectic collection of unlistened music.

So the N Files (for neglected) is my attempt to maintain a series of my attempts to digest all this music that I have. Hopefully by the end of the year all 24,000 items in my iTunes will be sufficiently listened to. Some will be lifted to manual playlists. Some will be discarded to the wayside. But all is fair in love and music. I would love to be one of those people that can perfectly place what a song or theme is reminiscent of like "this reminds me of the bridge in an Eddie Kendricks song" but that ain't me. I really admire those people but man I just love music. If I dissected it that much, it would lose something for me.

I wanted to come up with some sort of rating system that was kitschy and cool and uniquely mine, but I really don't have the energy or imagination for that right now so you just have to read the whole posting okay.

Today's selection is from Neko Case, the title of which is Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. I saw lots of things on it from Village Voice and The A.V. Club so I figured I'd find a friend (wink) who had it and got a copy. I started to play it back and forth as I came and left the room during laundry today and I must say that it was jarring, but in a good way. I had barely gotten through the first song and I was humming about "Pauline" as I loaded the washer. This is from the song "Margaret vs. Pauline" off of the album.

As I continued along, I was oddly drawn to her voice. It's just beautiful in a backwoods down South kind of way. She's rocking on harder stuff than that most of the time, but it comes off like some sort of punk country album. On paper that doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but it is appealing and definitely replayable. All the songs have this textured yet simple feel that was very relaxing. I also know I was drawn to the lyrics. I can't tell you what they were word for word, but my ears definitely perked up more than once and I plan on listening some more to get the full meaning.

Neko really moved me though. She's already made my shortlist for the dog I eventually have and that's saying something. If I listen some more, I might have to tell my future betrothed that Neko needs to be a middle name in one of our offspring. Once she hears the music, I'm sure she'll understand. It's that good.