SPELLBINDING SOUND
Collaboration ‘rejuvenates’ k.d. lang
There is no doubt whatsoever that case/lang/veirs has been a breath of fresh air for k.d. lang.
Before releasing the self-titled spellbinding debut album by her new trio project, also comprising singer-songwriters Neko Case and Laura Veirs, lang was pondering the next step in her career.
“I had been feeling slightly — playing with the idea of retirement,” lang said in a phone interview in May. “This project came up and it’s kind of rejuvenated me. I imagine there’s going to be more music from me in the future. I just have no idea what or when.”
Lang still has a contract with her label Nonesuch Records for one more album, but she hasn’t released anything since Sing It Loud, her 2011 album recorded with the Siss Boom Bang.
It’s difficult to imagine a world where the Edmonton-born singer — who now splits her time between Portland and Calgary — is retired.
“Yeah, well, the business is — I don’t know. The business is offputting,” she admits. “We’ll see.”
If lang has high hopes for the music she, Case and Veirs have been making, it’s for good reason.
case/lang/veirs, released on la-
bel Anti-, is a mesmerizing combination of voices inspired by some of the ’80s classic folk rock supergroups.
“I moved to Portland and did a charity event with The Decemberists and Laura Veirs was there,” lang recalls. “I was a fan of Laura’s so I was excited to meet her and Tucker (Martine, Veirs’ husband and producer for case/lang/veirs). Around the same time (in 2013) I had an interview with the Willamette Weekly with Neko. I sang on one of Laura’s songs as a result.
“I have wanted to do a Traveling Wilburys thing for a while, but with women. I just couldn’t figure out the pieces. One night I just went, ‘Oh my God, Neko, Laura and I would be — it would be off enough to work and we’re different enough but we have some similarities.’ So I wrote an email to them and within half an hour they both wrote back. Then about a week later we said, ‘Well, Tucker has to produce it.’”
The end result is a smouldering album that blends folk, rock and blues vibes with three distinct voices that combine in spine-tingling unison.
“When we started demo-ing the songs, we realized we didn’t want the three-part sound to be very prevalent in the record. What we really wanted was our individual strengths to come out and our uniqueness as artists to shine. We didn’t want a real sweet three-part sound.” In the end, case/lang/veirs offers a bit of both. Take Atomic Number, the album’s opening song where each voice takes a turn before coming together, or Blue Fires, where lang sings to an absent lover about the air getting sucked out of the room before ghostly electric guitars take over.
Lang described her role on the album as one that was more traditional and more focused on the editing and arrangement side of things, while Case and Veirs focused on the words.
“Laura’s a prolific writer and did most of the heavy lifting. She brought a lot of stuff to the table. Neko is a genius lyricist. It was truly collaborative, which isn’t easy, especially when you have three individually successful artists.”