Neneh Cherry & The Thing's The Cherry Thing

Next week, Neneh Cherry & The Thing release their debut, collaborative album, The Cherry Thing, on Smalltown Supersound. The Cherry Thing is Neneh's first collaboration with the Scandinavian jazz trio. Apart from their own compositions, the album features the music of such diverse artists as Ornette Coleman, Suicide, Don Cherry, Martina Topley-Bird, The Stooges, and MF Doom. 

"It's a wild record, in an expect-the-unexpected sort of way; it's also a homemade record, in that its arrangements feel spontaneous and minimally varnished by studio polish. It's a raw record, in the way that a go-anywhere singer encounters an upright bass, a baritone saxophone and an actual drum set."

- NPR Music's "First Listen"

"Cherry's voice begins as more of a late-Billie Holiday croak but ascends along with the song, one step leading to the next as it grows in intensity and feeling. For their part, the Thing treat the song's simple melody the way Albert Ayler did European folk ditties, mixing breezily sentimental yearning with a rush of emotion so torrential it borders on violence and terror. 'Dream baby dream baby dream baby dream baby dream baby dream... keep those dreams burning... forever.' They'll never last that long, and neither will the people dreaming them, but that's the beautiful thing about music: When the song reaches its peak about six minutes in, I start to believe."  

-- Pitchfork [Best New Track]

"'Too Tough to Die' by Tricky's collaborator Topley-Bird is frantic and driven; 'Golden Heart' by Don Cherry himself is dreamy and touching. Saxophonist Gustafsson's own 'Sudden Movement' is a standout, an alternately drifting and urgent piece that is the exploratory hinge of this short, breathless album."  

-- Artforum

"Cherry parses out her step father's music with the spirituality of 'Golden Heart' and on her own 'Cashback.' [The Thing] supports her throughout, yet never neglects its own sound. 'Sudden Moment' begins as a slow loping blues, Gustafsson harmonizing with Cherry; the saxophonist then takes on his Albert Ayler persona, blasting forth as Nilssen-Love's drum kit thunders over Flaten's pulse. Their burning core is barely contained."  

-- All About Jazz

Neneh Cherry online:

https://www.facebook.com/nenehcherryofficial

https://twitter.com/#!/misscherrylala

http://www.smalltownsupersound.com/