August 23rd with Neko Case. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM at Ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000, AEGLive.com, MannCenter.org, TicketPhiladelphia.org, 215-893-1999 or The Mann box office.

*

NEKO CASE — Middle Cyclone

A tomboyish siren with a thick red mane and lungs of fine Corinthian leather, Neko Case is equal parts gender warrior and indie aesthete, a potent hybrid aptly evoked by the Joan-of-Arc-on-a-muscle-car tableau on the cover of Middle Cyclone. Case is also in possession of what is arguably the greatest voice of her generation — clarion in tone; trans-national in its reach; and bottomless in its capacity to transmute wryly-observed public fictions into inescapable private truths that all more or less boil down to: I am woman, hear me ruminate. From the wide-screen countrypolitan cover of Sparks’ “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”  to the starry night campfire reverie of “Middle Cyclone” to the  so-lonesome-I-could-cry reading of  Harry Nilsson’s “Don’t Forget Me” the album stakes out a uniformly lovely vibe that’s reassuring even at its most forlorn: autumnal, moonlit, like there’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight. – JONATHAN VALANIA

 *