Canadians will claim as our own anyone who has even the most tenuous connection to the True North Strong and Free. A young Ernest Hemingway worked briefly for the Toronto Star? He’s Canadian. Keith Richards was busted for drugs here? He’s Canadian too. William Shatner, who was even born and raised here, has a building at Montreal’s McGill University named for him (his hairpiece, however, we concede to the USA). And don’t even get us started on Superman.
It’s rare, though, that this all-too-quick sentiment is reciprocated. Conservative pundits have, since Confederation, bellyached over a supposed brain drain that sees all talent trickle southward. So when someone actually acknowledges their Canadian roots, as Neko Case has with this EP featuring the work of four Canadian songwriters, it’s enough to make us flush with politely reserved pride.
Case, born in Virginia and now living in Chicago, began her musical career as the drummer in Vancouver punk bands Cub and Maow while attending art school. On Canadian Amp, she deftly sidesteps the Maple Myth and shows a side of Canada rarely seen in beer commercials or on SCTV, as only someone who has walked among us can.
Recorded in Case’s kitchen, Canadian Amp has a muted, ethereal feel throughout. When references to the modern era show up — an Aerostar in Neil Young’s “Dreaming Man”, car alarms in Lisa Marr’s “In California” — they jar you out of the sense of listening to something from long, long ago.
In keeping with that sensibility, Case plays down her voice, displaying a broader range of expression within narrower parameters of volume and pitch than on her previous recordings. Jon Rauhouse is spectacular on all manner of stringed instruments, heightening the spectral atmosphere of the eight-song disc, particularly on the murder ballads “Make Your Bed” and “Poor Ellen Smith”.
