You never really leave Missouri

But you can go someplace new

This is the first photo I took of Casey in the studio.¹ November 4, 2018, in the basement of a former Franciscan monastery in Wisconsin, where an arts nonprofit was letting me keep my recording stuff.

After eleven months together, Casey was finally letting me hear her songs, and we were recording a version of “Bluff” in the Dick’s Sporting Goods tent that I put in the middle of the monk room to soundproof it.

We put out that song. We played a quarter zillion shows in Chicago and around the Midwest. Casey wrote more songs and later on we recorded an LP’s worth in another basement, in the dead heat of summer, with our friends Max Subar, Jason Ashworth, Scott Daniel, and Nolan Chin.

On August 22, 2025, Case Oats’ first album, Last Missouri Exit, is out on Merge Records.

And because you’re very nice people who read Casey’s and my newsletters, you can pre-order the LP or CD for 17% less if you order it in the Merge Records store and use the code CASEOATS17 before June 15. (Seventeen days from now. “Yeah, we’re dorks,” said Merge in an email.)²

Colette Arrand at Merge wrote a really beautiful biography for the record, which I’ll quote from here.

On the drive north on the freeway to Chicago from Casey Gomez Walker’s hometown, the sign just before the Illinois border reads, in part, “Last Missouri Exit.” It is a point on the map, and, for her, a point of no return. Crossing it one day signaled the end of her childhood and the beginning of the rest of her life. The album is a hinge between those two states, its pangs of homesickness overlapping with the thrill of breaking for the horizon.

Here’s to Case Oats breaking for the horizon. I hope you love the record as much as we do.

—Spencer

Last Missouri Exit tracklist

1. Buick Door

2. Nora

3. Bitter Root Lake

4. Kentucky Cave

5. Seventeen

6. Wishing Stone

7. In a Bungalow

8. Tennessee

9. Hallelujah

10. Bluff

Case Oats Tour Dates

Thu. July 24 - Sun. July 27 - Evanston, IL @ Out of Space
Tue. Aug. 19 - New York, NY @ Nightclub 101 %
Wed. Aug. 20 - Toronto, ON @ The Drake %
Fri. Aug. 22 - Chicago, IL @ The Hideout %
Wed. Sept. 17 - Wed. Sept. 24 - Nashville, TN @ Americana Music Festival

% Album Release Show

Bitter Root Lake music video

1. Shot on an iPhone 6 Toaster.

2. Every preorder of the record comes with a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally cute Case Oats button while supplies last.