John Fordham 

Neneh Cherry: The Cherry Thing – review

This exhilarating set with free-jazz trio the Thing bridges Cherry's avant-pop world and the group's flat-out sax-howling soundscape, writes John Fordham
  
  


Maybe former pop singer and Brit award-winner Neneh Cherry was destined to end up singing with a free-improv jazz band. After 1980s hits such as Buffalo Stance and Manchild, and collaborations with film composers and dance experimentalists in the noughties, she returns to the jazz-inspired situations she first explored with the post-punk band Rip Rig + Panic, which she'd learned at the knee of her jazz-trumpeter stepfather Don Cherry. This exhilarating set with Norwegian and Swedish free-jazz trio the Thing dramatically bridges the singer's avant-pop world and the flat-out sax-howling, percussion-thundering soundscape the group have been poleaxing audiences with since 2000. The cover of Suicide's Dream Baby Dream, the eight-minute standout track, is like free-squalling South African township jazz. Sudden Movement has a feel of Don Cherry's involvement with the Liberation Music Orchestra to it, while the vocals on his own Golden Heart are ghostly and echoing. The Stooges' Dirt is a terrifying avant-blues shout amid multiphonic squeals. This album is real fusion, not just a genre-crossing shot in the dark.

 

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