by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“As an American, there’s a lot of sadness associated with the state of our country right now,” says Neko Case. “It’s hard to remember that you need to keep faith.”

Not religious faith, necessarily, but the kind of faith that wanes when a relationship turns sour, when friends or family let you down, or when your country is taken over by corporatist wingnuts. Sadness may have lit the fire under Case’s third solo album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, co-written by the Sadies and bandmate Paul Rigby, but its emotional range—not unlike Case’s vocal range—is vast, and never devoid of hope. Two of the album’s loveliest songs, “Hold On, Hold On” and “That Teenage Feeling,” walk that line between optimism and despair.

“There’s all kinds of tiny facets inside the spectrum of sadness that you really have to pay attention to, otherwise you won’t learn a goddamn thing,” says Case. “They can actually be very beautiful, and that’s one of the things I love about Russian and Ukrainian fairy tales.”

Raised in “the middle of nowhere,” Washington State, Case derived her morbid sense of humour from her Eastern European heritage, including the culture’s cautionary tales for kids. Like her album artwork, featuring a cloven-hoofed girl and her fox friend collecting red-haired decapitated heads, these fables don’t advocate Disney-brand “Judeo-Christian morality,” which Case finds “incredibly boring.” As in Native American folklore, her old-country fables reflect a reverence for animals, something that was put into practice in her childhood home.

“Even if people didn’t get respect, you respected the animals,” she explains. “Their needs were very important, and they were allowed to sleep in the bed with you, which I loved.”

Some of the stranger beasts that may or may not have bunked with Ms. Case include a goat and a chinchilla (“They really hate people—they should not be pets,” she says), but these days she’s goin’ steady with Lloyd, a retired racing greyhound.

“I finally got a dog again, after not having a pet for such a long time, and I didn’t realize how empty I felt. He brings me so much joy,” she says—but, “I’m not a dog or a cat person, I’m a dog-and-cat-and-bird-and-goat-and-cow person. I’d have ’em all.”

Tigers, lions, foxes and sparrows have worked their way into Case’s lyrics, if not her Chicago home, but it’s their power and mystery that inspire her, not fear.

“I spent a lot of time around things like coyotes and deer and other wild animals, but foxes are really lucid so they still have that mystery for me that I can get excited about.” And with all the time spent on the road and in recording studios in Tuscon (with her band) and Vancouver (with the New Pornographers), Case always finds time for a little bird-watching.

“Just the other night, I saw a huge great horned owl while I was running. For lack of a more smart-sounding word, it was awesome. I find wild animals really inspiring, and I don’t take them for granted. I always feel better knowing they’re around.”

With the High Dials at Club Soda on Tuesday,
April 4, 9 p.m., $25, all ages

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