Middle Cyclone

The recording of Middle Cyclone took place in Tucson, Brooklyn, Toronto, and Vermont. Case herself stated that only the "piano orchestra" sessions were recorded in Vermont and that the rest was recorded using WaveLab in Tucson. At the time, Case was transitioning from living in Tucson to a recently purchased farm in Vermont, where she recorded in a barn on the property. Of the eight pianos that Case rescued, six were playable after two days of tuning by two tuners.) "Don't Forget Me" contains a gust of wind close to the song's end. The final track, "Marais La Nuit" (French for "Marsh at Night"), is an actual field recording of the environs around a pond on Case's farm. When asked about the track in an interview with Paste magazine, Case responded "I actually went down to the pond and recorded that myself." ==Publicity==

New material from Middle Cyclone was first widely publicized when Case performed at Bumbershoot in Seattle, WA on Saturday August 30, 2008, from 1–2:15 pm. In addition to older material such as "Favorite", "Margaret vs. Pauline", and "That Teenage Feeling", the set included four songs from the unreleased album, including "I'm an Animal", "The Pharaohs", "Don't Forget Me", and "Vengeance Is Sleeping". Fan-made video recordings of the songs were posted the next day to YouTube "Dear God she is wielding a sword" was the subtitle of the article. On December 15, 2008, ANTI- released an Electronic Press Kit for Middle Cyclone in the form of a YouTube video. The promotion also included a give-away of four autographed copies of the album, with the fifth winner receiving not only a signed copy of Middle Cyclone but also her entire ANTI- catalog: The Tigers Have Spoken, Blacklisted (reissue), Furnace Room Lullaby (reissue), Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (bonus), and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. "People Got A Lotta Nerve" The first single from Middle Cyclone is "People Got a Lotta Nerve", which initially was released as a free download on January 13, 2009, on the ANTI- blog and the day after on their website. In celebration of Best Friends Animal Society's 25th anniversary in 2009, for every blogger that reposted "People Got a Lotta Nerve" or iLike user who added it to their profile, Neko Case and ANTI- made a cash donation to the charity. Case was interviewed and performed "People Got A Lotta Nerve" live for QTV on February 24, accompanied by Paul Rigby on acoustic guitar and Kelly Hogan on backing vocals. On March 4, 2009, Case performed on The Tonight Show. On March 20 ANTI- released a music video for "People Got A Lotta Nerve" on both MTV2's early-morning show "Subterranean" and its YouTube channel. The animated video, created by brother/sister team Paul and Julie Morstad, depicts a red-headed schoolgirl – ostensibly Case – who is ejected from a killer whale's blowhole onto the grounds of an estate. The red-head witnesses the interactions of a multitude of other girls with animals, but is returned to the belly of the whale when she takes aim at one of the animals with a rifle found in the estate's manor house. Various types of interactions between humans and animals are presented in the video, including the care, stewardship and play associated with domesticated animals, hunting, animal servitude, and man-eating. Despite the prominent repetition of the lyric "man-eater" the video does not depict men or boys. The schoolgirls' childlike activities (climbing, swinging, walking on stilts, jumping rope, piggy-back riding, pillow fighting, and clapping games) take place near and even on animals such as elephants, greyhounds, tigers, rheas, falcons, and monkeys. Animals are depicted in the video with as much agency as the humans: monkeys read pieces of paper, falcons intervene to prevent the red-head from shooting a monkey, the rhea allows two girls to ride on its back, and the tiger eats the girls brushing him. The video also contains several depictions of Case in the form of a portrait hung in the manor's stairwell and the transposition of one of Case's promotional portraits from Middle Cyclone onto the paper one of the monkeys possesses. The black comic scene in which the tiger has eaten his youthful groomers (their shoes and brushes have been left behind as the animal licks its chops) alludes to Case's song "The Tigers Have Spoken", whose lyrics describe a man-eating tiger driven mad by the isolation of captivity and shot on his chain. ==Reception==

Middle Cyclone received generally positive reviews from critics. The New York Times Daniel Menaker praised her "real richness and body," writing that "She has often been described as a belter, a force of nature, a kind of vocal tornado. So this increased admixture of playfulness, delicacy and orchestral effects strikes you as the kind of variegation that artists — and species — make in order to survive and thrive." Middle Cyclone debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 albums chart in its first week of release, making it Case's first album to reach the top ten in the United States. As of 2013, sales in the United States have exceeded 223,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. As of 2010 it has sold 17,000 copies in Canada. ==Middle Cyclone tour==

The Europe February 2009 Tour, described as "a sneak of the new album", began in Berlin, Germany on Wednesday February 18, 2009, and ended on the 23rd in London, England. Middle Cyclone's Spring 2009 Tour began at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas on March 31, 2009. It then snaked through the Southeast, US East Coast, Canada, and Midwest through the end of April. It was expanded to include locales in the Southwest, US West Coast, other locales across North America, and eventually expanded to other countries such as Australia. The band Crooked Fingers opened for the majority of Case's spring 2009 shows. ==Track listing==

All songs written by Neko Case, except where noted. • Neko Case • Dallas Good • Travis Good • Sean Dean • Mike Belitsky }} }} Note • On the vinyl release "Marais la Nuit" is shortened to about 15 minutes and takes up all of Side Four. ==Personnel==

• Neko Case – vocals, guitar, piano, tambourine, happy apple • Paul Rigby – guitars, piano, music box, organ, dulcimer • Tom V. Ray – bass • Kelly Hogan – backing vocals • Lucy Wainwright Roche – backing vocals • Jon Rauhouse – guitar, pedal steel, Hawaiian guitar • Barry Mirochnick – drums • Kurt Heasley – guitar, backing vocals • Sarah Harmer – vocals on "Fever" • Carolyn Mark – backing vocals on "Magpie" • Howe Gelb – piano, guitar • Garth Hudson – organ, piano • Dallas Good – guitar • Travis Good – guitar on "The Pharaohs" • M. Ward – guitar on "Fever" and "Magpie" • Nora O'Connor – backing vocals • Ryan Boyles – piano • Blaine Thurier – piano • Kathryn Calder – piano ==References==