Neko Case's Animal Instincts

Neko Case has never taken the obvious path. The 38-year-old singer grew up poor, ran away from home and dropped out of high school at 15 — though she ended up earning a B.F.A. from a Canadian art school. Along the way, Case also became a staunch supporter of animal rights (her four dogs are rescued from shelters) and an avid kickboxer; she's also turned down major-label record deals, rebuffed Playboy's offer of a nude photo spread and once broke her hand punching a drunk asshole outside a club. Recently, Case voiced the role of a young pop diva who rides a cocaine-snorting unicorn for a Cartoon Network pilot. "It's dark and fucking vile and awesome," says Case, sipping iced tea at a laid-back Italian joint in midtown Manhattan.

Case's decade-long career in music has been nearly as colorful and offbeat as her life. When she started releasing albums in the late Nineties, she was the most exciting female singer in alt-country — even though she hates the term — recalling a spunkier Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn. Around the same time, she became a hero to rock nerds when she joined cult Canadian power-pop act the New Pornographers. Her last three solo albums have found Case drifting toward a harder-to-define sound: rootsy, inventive rock & roll filled with noirish flourishes and abstract lyrics. "I just wanted to follow new ideas," she says. "Otherwise I'd bore you."

Middle Cyclone, Case's newest album and fifth overall, is the most expansive release of her career: Byrds guitars and bright, catchy choruses greet ornate acoustic grooves, eerily beautiful ballads and lyrics about friendly tornadoes and talking elephants. Featuring guest appearances by M. Ward, the Band's Garth Hudson and members of Los Lobos and Calexico, Cyclone should outsell Case's 2006 breakthrough, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, which moved 200,000 copies. "It's more upbeat and poppy than my earlier albums," Case says. "That was a conscious decision."