Jazz breaking news: Neneh Cherry And The Thing Rip It Up At Village Underground
Monday, July 16, 2012
The frequently riotous, and defiantly non-conformist collaboration between Neneh Cherry and The Thing (pictured) hit London’s Village Underground with some thump last night, as part of its fast wheeling European tour.
Their album The Cherry Thing was “born here in Acton,” Cherry told the all-standing audience who jostled for position in this cavernous, old industrial building near the train tracks in Shoreditch. It has caused quite a stir, and producer Robert Harder was also on hand here manning the sound desk, something Cherry was obviously pleased about.
The place was packed to the gills with a mix of old punks, free jazz nuts and gaggles of women who had earlier danced around to the dub reggae blasting out like a furnace from the venue’s sound system before Cherry and The Thing came on around 10pm. Tessa Pollitt from The Slits was supposed to have done a support slot but was a no-show and so Cherry, wearing a short Adidas jacket above her top and lots of jangly jewellery hanging from her neck, got stuck in to the blitzkrieg of sound unleashed by The Thing, setting the tone of the evening. Shrieking and shouting with pleasure, it was a primal scream at times. Suicide’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’, much gentler in its nature, came early in the set, a lullaby to the mayhem elsewhere. But the later, angry rendition of Cherry’s ‘Cashback’ and The Stooges’ ‘Dirt’ was a rip roaring rush introduced by dystopian electronic effects that sounded like a mad chainsaw letting rip. Delivered with a punk intensity you rarely hear any more, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten held this rollercoaster of a band together, impressing even more later in the set when he switched to electric bass.
The Thing have a fearsome reputation in free jazz and improv circles, all of it justified, and having seen Cherry and The Thing separately their pairing up makes perfect sense. Maybe some of the songs went on too long and that level of intensity is hard to maintain but Mats Gustafsson did his utmost, riffing ferociously on baritone saxophone and with Ayler-esque abandon, joining Cherry for an extraordinary freeform shouting and shrieking battle near the end. ‘Sudden Moment’ showed some much-needed tenderness, and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love at all times managed to steer the band in a rhythmic direction that developed its own loping punkish momentum. An inspired collaboration to set your pulse racing for sure.
– Stephen Graham