Neneh Cherry: worth the wait
25 years after her breakthrough single, “Buffalo Stance”, and 18 years after her previous solo album, which included the hit “7 Seconds”, at last we have Blank Project. “I can only turn out music that feels honest and that is really relevant too,” explains Neneh Cherry, as she tells us why it was worth the wait.
The Swedish-Sierra Leonean singer, rapper, and DJ conquered the world under the name she inherited from her stepfather, the late American jazz trumpeter Don Cherry. In just over a week’s time she will be 50, but that’s no reason to rest on her laurels. On Blank Project, recorded under the expert and suitably restrained guidance of the great Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet, she opens up her heart about everything she stayed silent about for the last decade and a half. In the early 1990s she was a mother figure for Portishead and Massive Attack; now she seems to be picking up that thread again, together with Hebden and RocketNumberNine, a jazz, punk, and electronica ensemble that Thom Yorke is wild about and that accompanied her last summer at Couleur Café.
The Swedish-Sierra Leonean singer, rapper, and DJ conquered the world under the name she inherited from her stepfather, the late American jazz trumpeter Don Cherry. In just over a week’s time she will be 50, but that’s no reason to rest on her laurels. On Blank Project, recorded under the expert and suitably restrained guidance of the great Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet, she opens up her heart about everything she stayed silent about for the last decade and a half. In the early 1990s she was a mother figure for Portishead and Massive Attack; now she seems to be picking up that thread again, together with Hebden and RocketNumberNine, a jazz, punk, and electronica ensemble that Thom Yorke is wild about and that accompanied her last summer at Couleur Café.
When you were recording the album you were constantly reminded of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – which is strange for an artist known for her melting-pot blend of hip hop, jazz, pop, and electronica.
Neneh Cherry: [Laughs] The studio was located in a converted church, which was connected to a classic US country house with a big porch. In the mornings, before rehearsals, we looked out over a wood. A typical Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album sleeve, surely? We recorded the album in Woodstock, not because we were looking for the Holy Grail, but because Kieran lives there for half of the year and he was the only person we wanted to produce the album. The place was ideal for us…so peaceful, and it was wonderful for once not to be distracted by all that modern technology that dominates our lives these days.
Ideal, too, for an album that sounds unvarnished and is sparely arranged, with subdued synthesisers and drum rhythms.
Cherry: It had to be kept raw. Kieran, too, had a very good sense of what sound would suit a particular track, focused on that, and cut out all the little sounds around it. The only thing we had to do was let go. For me, writing this music was a bit like going into a confessional – and you don’t do that in an over-manipulated mass of sounds. The layers, this time, are in the emotional range. We take that into the live performances too. We play what we feel.
It was strange that it took you so long to make a new album. Did you find being a role model too much?
Cherry: Music-making is something very strange. It is something private, and then again it isn’t, for you also want to let go of it and share it. When I made my breakthrough, I felt it was crucial to make a statement about what I thought was important as a young woman and I felt, in a cocky, almost arrogant way, that nothing could hold me back. I felt honoured when other people responded. But I never took that role as a role model that seriously. I’m not a politician. A time comes, however, when your music also becomes a product and that makes your life even more complicated. I felt very strongly the need to react against that. I didn’t want to be a slave of the pop industry. I needed to find a place where I could be honest, because I still think it’s vitally important that you also really have something to say. It’s only now that I’m ready for that again.
(Photo: © Fredrik Skogkvist)
Neneh Cherry: [Laughs] The studio was located in a converted church, which was connected to a classic US country house with a big porch. In the mornings, before rehearsals, we looked out over a wood. A typical Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album sleeve, surely? We recorded the album in Woodstock, not because we were looking for the Holy Grail, but because Kieran lives there for half of the year and he was the only person we wanted to produce the album. The place was ideal for us…so peaceful, and it was wonderful for once not to be distracted by all that modern technology that dominates our lives these days.
Ideal, too, for an album that sounds unvarnished and is sparely arranged, with subdued synthesisers and drum rhythms.
Cherry: It had to be kept raw. Kieran, too, had a very good sense of what sound would suit a particular track, focused on that, and cut out all the little sounds around it. The only thing we had to do was let go. For me, writing this music was a bit like going into a confessional – and you don’t do that in an over-manipulated mass of sounds. The layers, this time, are in the emotional range. We take that into the live performances too. We play what we feel.
It was strange that it took you so long to make a new album. Did you find being a role model too much?
Cherry: Music-making is something very strange. It is something private, and then again it isn’t, for you also want to let go of it and share it. When I made my breakthrough, I felt it was crucial to make a statement about what I thought was important as a young woman and I felt, in a cocky, almost arrogant way, that nothing could hold me back. I felt honoured when other people responded. But I never took that role as a role model that seriously. I’m not a politician. A time comes, however, when your music also becomes a product and that makes your life even more complicated. I felt very strongly the need to react against that. I didn’t want to be a slave of the pop industry. I needed to find a place where I could be honest, because I still think it’s vitally important that you also really have something to say. It’s only now that I’m ready for that again.
(Photo: © Fredrik Skogkvist)
NENEH CHERRY • 3/3, 20.00, SOLD OUT!, ancienne belgique, boulevard Anspachlaan 110, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-548.24.24,
www.abconcerts.be
Read more about: Muziek
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