Neneh Cherry & The Thing "The Cherry Thing" out 18th of June on CD, LP and download
Neneh Cherry and jazz trio The Thing met for the first time at a recording session in London in the fall of 2010. It clicked right away as they all shared an open, free approach to the music. The high energy of The Thing’s playing found a fitting counterpart in Neneh’s intense style. After a performance at Strand, Stockholm in March 2011, they decided to continue the collaboration resulting in their forthcoming, self-titled album, The Cherry Thing, out June 19 on Smalltown Supersound. 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.
The Thing took its name from a piece by world/free jazz trumpet great Don Cherry: when they first got together it was to play his music. So it makes sense that they should eventually team up with Don Cherry’s daughter.
A born pioneer, Neneh Cherry fits naturally into the forefront of musical and social change, whether it's post-punk, rap, or giving the music world a new image of female pop stars. Starting out by joining key punk girl band The Slits, Neneh next became the voice of the renegade free-blowing post-punk Rip, Rig and Panic and their successor: Float Up, C.P. After attracting further attention with her vocals on The The's classic “Slow Train To Dawn,” Neneh became part of Buffalo, the creative collective assembled by the late visionary Ray Petri, whose style so shaped the 1980s. Now a solo artist, Cherry hit it big straight away with the worldwide hit singles “Buffalo Stance,” “Manchild” and “Inna City Mamma” from her debut album Raw Like Sushi. More followed, like “Buddy X” from the Homebrew and Man albums, which also featured “Woman” and “7 Seconds.” After the Man album Neneh decided to step off the corporate music business tread mill preferring to collaborate with artists such as Tricky, Damon Albarn/Gorillaz and her own family collective, cirKus.
The Thing, established in the spring of 2000 when Mats Gustafsson (saxophones), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass, electric bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) met to play several concerts and to record their first album on the Crazy Wisdom label. The trio was a long wanted constellation where several musical styles meet in a very high energetic outlet. All members are influenced by different traditions of free music derived from Germany, England and the US, and these influences are to be felt, but not necessarily heard. The Thing has performed with guests like Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, Otomo Yoshihide, Jim O’Rourke and Thurston Moore. It is now signed to Smalltown Superjazzz.
Mats Gustafsson is one of Europe's biggest names on the free music scene. Through groups like Gush, AALY trio and Peter Brötzmann`s Chicago Tentet he has established himself as a very powerful saxophonist who has somewhat reinvented the way of playing the saxophone. In 2011 he received the Nordic Council Music Prize, the biggest price for a musician in the Nordic countries.
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love have become known as Norway`s heaviest rhythm-section. Since their long-time collaboration started in 1992, they have been working together in several groups like School Days with Ken Vandermark, Scorch Trio with Raoul Björkenheim, and the Swedish/Norwegian jazz-group Atomic.
The Cherry Thingtracklisting:
1. Cashback (Neneh Cherry)
2. Dream Baby Dream (Suicide)
3. Too Tough To Die (Martina Topley-Bird)
4. Sudden Movement (Mats Gustaffson)
5. Accordion (MF Doom)
6. Golden Heart (Don Cherry)
7. Dirt (The Stooges)
8. What Reason (Ornette Coleman)