“Supergroup” is a flawed term, implying a Justice League of musicians banding together to use their powers for good. Most newly minted collaborations shy away from its grandiose implications (and perhaps you'd be right to suspect the motives of any who didn't). In reality, these projects often start from much smaller stakes: a chance to escape your natural creative instincts, and ultimately better understand them.
The debut album by k.d. lang, Neko Case, and Laura Veirs has been compared to Trio, the 1987 effort from Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris, and the parallel makes sense in a way—there are few precedents for female solo artists banding together, and Americana is the black sheep on country’s family tree. But the titular Trio were at the height of their commercial powers in the late 1980s. Although titans in their respective fields, case/lang/veirs aren't really capitalizing on anything here. lang met Case and Veirs after she moved to Portland, and thought they’d be perfect for the punky girl group she wanted to form. She emailed them, simply stating, “I think we should make a record.” Within half an hour, they had both replied saying yes.
Rather than bring finished songs to the studio, they honored the spirit of collaboration, with Veirs and lang taking the bulk of the work, and Case, who lives primarily in Vermont, joining them when she could. These are three of the strongest voices in their field—lang the full-voiced seductress, Case the hurricane, and Veirs the wry storyteller—so things could easily have become overcrowded. Instead, they give each other space to take the lead on group-authored material, which wound up veering from lang’s original punk Ronettes template in favor of dusky songs about devotion, heartache, and awe at the simple power of human connection and creativity—the kind that underpins a project like this. “I Want to Be Here” is one of a few songs written by all three musicians, and finds them praising a misfit artist friend who “lost a front tooth, can’t keep a job,” Veirs sings, reassuring them, “but the things you make are so beautiful / They bring me joy / Don’t you ever stop.” Singing as a meditative campfire choir, they avow that “the hungry fools who rule the world can’t catch us / Surely they can’t ruin everything.”
case/lang/veirs makes a few subtle political statements about the human cost of being an artist. “Our life savings aren’t enough / Have to love you hard and make it up, make it up,” Case sings on realist heartbreaker “Supermoon,” where strings and the odd rumble of thunder lend forlorn drama to a heavily thumbed acoustic guitar. Veirs’ “Song for Judee” gives dignity to the late singer-songwriter Judee Sill, elucidating the harsh realities of her life with empathy and warmth. They dismiss preconceptions about youth determining the value of women artists on “Atomic Number,” dividing the opening lines into a three-part sunrise. “I’m not the freckled maid / I’m not the fair-haired girl / I’m not a pail of milk for you to spoil,” they declare, as pattering percussion pushes their elegy for innocence into a golden chorus. “Why are the wholesome things the ones we make obscene?” Case asks later on.
Although lang has said they didn’t start with a theme, much of case/lang/veirs stems from this idea of relationships as wholesome forces. More than once, the presence of someone else is a revivifying power, peeling whoever’s singing away from the ledge, up off the rug. And despite each artist’s unique individual approach, they share a sensory approach to singing about these intimacies that’s completely intoxicating and oftentimes driven by natural imagery (like much of Case's best work). “Why does the heart of the flame burn blue? / Why do January cherries bloom? / Why do blue fires burn in me, yet not in you?” lang croons over tumbling jazz piano on “Blue Fires.” Case’s “Delirium” takes place in bed, her sleeping lover’s skin smelling like fireworks. The “Greens of June” flood in and make Veirs “want to live like I never have before,” while “laundry on the line, truckers passing on the right” remind Case of all the beauty there is to live for, driving “Down I-5” with her shoulder burning in the window.
Loveliest of all is lang’s “Honey and Smoke,” where she watches other people fawning over her lover—“I watch as they pour honey in your ear”—with confident devotion. It’s a dreamy western slow dance, until lang too is overcome by infatuation. “Unaware of just how beautiful you are from within / Uncontainable / Exquisite to the detail / It hypnotizes people / Robs them of their social graces / Swarming to your glow / Fanning with phrases,” she sings with rapt intensity, losing her cool for a moment and showing her hand. Even when they sing about being emotionally closed-off, on “Behind the Armory,” they can’t help but make it beautiful: “Flies in amber / Sand in soap / Air trapped in the glass,” Case yearns.
The sweetness of their gaze only makes the melodies on case/lang/veirs seem more familiar, resonating deep within some distant memory while still sounding fresh. The hooks are mostly vocal-led, but producer Tucker Martine and the small band of players (including Glenn Kotche on percussion) color them perfectly. In “Best Kept Secret,” Veirs calls on a friend in California to lighten her mood, accompanied by a gold-rush fanfare of horns and guitars. Woodwind tentatively dots the edges of “1000 Miles Away,” where lang anguishes about the distance between her and the woman standing right next to her. “Why Do We Fight” finds elegance in defeat, lang questioning the point of “spit and punches” amid streams of pedal steel and soft piano. The attention to detail is just as evident in the small production touches—the subtle plucks and scrapes that make these songs feel lived-in and alive, like the barely perceptible mechanical glimmer that gilds the edge of the steady fingerpicked pulse in “I Want to Be Here,” or the muted line of firecrackers that skitters down the chorus of “Honey and Smoke.”
What are the stakes with a collaborative record like this? It probably won’t yield a follow-up, but it’d be a gift if it did. None of the participants had suffered a lapse in her powers and needed reviving, though the newsworthiness of the collaboration should hopefully introduce a generation of listeners to their respective deep catalogues (particularly lang's). case/lang/veirs isn’t a springboard or a resting place—it's a tribute to connection, communion, and reflection on the things that bind us. And it feels particularly significant and sanctuary-like for the fractured times that we live in. “I just want, I wanna be here with you,” they sing in unison. “Not bracing for what comes next.”
