The Cherry Thing is a marvellous album. This is not some sort of vanity project or nostalgia trip.
It's just fantastically accessible, tightly constructed (as far as improvisational music can be), and smart.
Cherry’s quarter-decade career has been characterised by her effortless application of unparalleled pop instincts to every genre she’s dabbled in, and this remains the case here.
It's a remarkably well-defined, cohesive, and above all things inviting listen, and at eight tracks it feels neither slight nor needlessly sprawling.
It might be too pop for The Thing’s fans and too disruptive for Cherry’s, but the phenomenal performances from Cherry and Gustafsson simply blast away any genre preconceptions
That’s essentially the mode of attack of ‘The Cherry Thing’ ... lure you in with slink, then bend your mind with skronk.
Neither Neneh Cherry nor The Thing are well served by the self imposed shackles within a lot of these tracks, perhaps intended to provide security while building new musical relationships.
It's a tough listen, shrill and disjointed.
The missing link between Neneh Cherry and The Thing is the producer Conny Lindstrom who suggested this collaboration, a risky but not unexpected collaboration that reaches the thorny limits of a brutal beauty.
Cashback - 4/5
Dream Baby Dream - 3/5
Too Tough To Die - 3/5
Sudden Moment - 3/5
Accordion - 3/5
Golden Heart - 3/5
Dirt - 3/5
What Reason Could I Give - 3/5
Neneh Cherry & The Thing
The Cherry Thing
https://nenehcherry.bandcamp.com/album/the-cherry-thing
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