Doom & Gloom From the Tomb

Neneh Cherry & The Thing - The Cherry Thing

This collab has been earning its fair share of praise for the past month or so. Let me add my voice to the chorus! The Cherry Thing is an inspired and inspiring pairing. Though Neneh’s free jazz pedigree is undeniable (her dad being the incomparable Don Cherry), I didn’t expect her to fit in quite so perfectly with the monster improv trio, The Thing (consisting of Mats Gustafson on sax, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums). But oh man, she does, she does! Cherry has been, to my knowledge, mostly MIA from the music scene for at least a decade, but hopefully this is just the first salvo in an ongoing resurgence. She sounds positively fierce, unleashing her inner Iggy on a seething “Dirt,” reveling in the twisted rhymes of MF Doom’s “Accordion” and discovering the deep groove in Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream.” The Thing matches Cherry’s enthusiasm with a clattering, passionate racket that holds the center even while going far, far out. My personal favorite is actually one of the mellower numbers, a sublime version of “What Reason,” Ornette Coleman’s mystical tone poem from his classic Science Fiction album. Cherry caresses the simple melody as the band fills in the subtle colors behind her, creating a perfect smear of sound. Dig this Thing!   

Listen to “Dream Baby Dream”