There's a special challenge to being an artist in this increasingly fractured cultural age; a delicate balancing act, between being of your time, and striving for timelessness. Few contemporary artists even try. Neko Case is an exception.

Case's last album, 2006's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, brought her to that nexus where critical acclaim meets commercial success. But Case's impact can't be measured merely in chart placements or press plaudits. It's her ability to connect on an uncommonly deep and meaningful level with her audience. She's one those artists, you see: the kind whose songs linger in your head, your heart and soul long after the record has stopped spinning.

Ultimately, for Case, the songs and themes on Middle Cyclone express a long internal struggle, a pitched battle between nature and nurture. "Things like animals and nature, they're located in the tender receptor of my brain. And I'm just now trying to come to terms with the notion of loving people as much as I love those other things because I grew up in a way that made me love the one but not the other.'

"So, I guess I've been working that out for myself, and these songs are my way of reconciling those feelings."