Pitchfork

The very sonorous Neko Case has just announced her preparation to tour the living shit out of her latest offering, Blacklisted. The 15-date tour will take her all across this krazy kountry, beginning with a performance opening for the Indigo Girls at the flossed-out Chicago Theater in, um, Chicago. After this, she'll wander through St. Louis (aka Nellyville), Kansas and Colorado before heading through the south, and finally collapsing, spent, in Seattle at the end of the month.

Neko will be joined on much of this tour by by Freakwater's Catherine Irwin, who is touring in support of her Thrill Jockey-released solo album, Cut Yourself a Switch, and by Mint Records labelmate Carolyn Mark, who herself is promoting a recent album with Her Room-Mates titled Terrible Hostess. Neko Case and Carolyn Mark collaborated as a duo in 2000 for The Other Women, a full-length album they recorded under the guise of Corn Sisters. Tourdates:

02-06 Chicago, IL - Chicago Theater (w/Indigo Girls)
02-07 St Louis, MO - Off Broadway *
02-08 Lawrence, KS - The Bottleneck *
02-10 Denver, CO - Gothic Theater *
02-12 Albuquerque, NM - Launchpad *
02-14 Austin, TX - Mercury *
02-15 New Orleans, LA - Shim Sham Club *
02-17 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club *
02-18 Asheville, NC - Stella Blue *
02-19 Chattanooga, TN - The Attic *
02-20 Louisville, KY - Headliners *
02-21 Columbus, OH - Little Brothers *
02-22 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick *
03-29 Seattle, WA - Experience Music Project 03-30 Seattle, WA - Experience Music Project

* - w/Catherine Irwin, Carolyn Mark

Case has spent much of the last year in the recording studio, working on Blacklisted in Chicago, as well as contributing to the highly anticipated follow-up to the New Pornographers' debut, Mass Romantic. As publicists have been unusually tight-lipped about the forthcoming Pornographers LP, not much is known about it as yet. It is, however, tentatively scheduled for a May release, and will feature all of the original members-- including Destroyer's Dan Bejar, who was rumored to have left the band in 2001.