Please talk about: "Buffalo Stance" by Neneh Cherry

whoa

I was sold till "MF Doom"

prob means jazzers playing Dilla, not Neneh fabricating Dumile flow

incredible!!!! more than i hoped for.

http://soundcloud.com/smalltownsupersound/neneh-cherry-the-thing-dream?secret_token=s-TtYIX

prob means jazzers playing Dilla, not Neneh fabricating Dumile flow

nope, it's the other way, and it works. really works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jovsxh8FeYo

This sounds good. Just bought tickets..

gigs? what, where??

They are playing London, Amsterdam, Berlin etc. Not many gigs. I think that will change though. I got tickets for the London gig in July.

cheers!

i'm really loving this album. from a position of near-total ignorance - love neneh long time obv, but hadn't even heard of the thing, and am only familiar with one of the originals. but the things she does with her voice these days are incredible and i love how spontaneous/controlled it all sounds.

this is a really incredible record isn't it? the thing haven't really toned down what they do that much and it still works which is quite an achievement, it's like the bad plus / wendy lewis record's cool older sister

i was sold till "bad plus"

This is a great record. An amazing first impression, and I expect to like it more as it gets more familiar.

this is all very well but I preferred it when The Thing were my little free jazz band that no-one had heard of

yeah totally, there's loads of little conversations going on here. neneh is fucking awesome on this. there was a nice piece in the metro on tuesday...

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/music/901487-neneh-cherry-brother-eagle-eye-wishes-dad-couldve-heard-this-album#ixzz1xgThpHB3

I bet The Thing is pretty happy that they are finally getting some attention. I'm happy for them. Still haven't heard this album but I've liked everything else they've done that I've heard.

i had never even heard OF the thing until this album

i've still only heard one of the originals

they're fairly big as free jazz power trios go to be sure, but yknow that's the kind of big that means occasionally getting an audience in the triple figures.

they've been playing to triple-figure audiences in Europe for years, but didn't get any notice in the UK until the Cafe Oto hipster crowd moved in.

welp that'll be me then.

xpost

if they didn't get any notice in the uk how did the 'cafe oto hipsters' hear abt them?

lol?

b/c Cafe Oto put on a couple of shows by them, I guess.

xp

you know that's balls, right?

not really... enlighten me

nah but they've been pretty high profile in the appropriate uk scenes for ages, haven't they? even as a v surface level dabbler i knew them in 2005 or so.

i saw mats play to a packed out wardrobe in leeds around 2005. they're certainly among the biggest names in improvised music, don't really know why we're talking this tho. or hipsters. i thought anagram was joking upthread... are you srsly butthurt that your litte free jazz band are getting a bit of press?

like, why have some of the free jazz shows i've seen at cafe oto been attended by three men and dog, but then suddenly these mythical free jazz hipsters turn out in their hundreds when the thing - a group that has received 'no notice' in the uk - play there?

sometimes when you're quite good people talk about you and then people that write about what people are talking about write about you and then the mythical free jazz hipster appears

like, why have some of the free jazz shows i've seen at cafe oto been attended by three men and dog, but then suddenly these mythical free jazz hipsters turn out in their hundreds when the thing - a group that has received 'no notice' in the uk - play there?

well that was kind of my point. why do the thing attract larger audiences than other free jazz bands? it's not because they're better. sadly, i think it's because they have this cachet of cool.

The Thing's versions of rock tunes, collabs with the Ex, Thurston etc, plus being on the jazz subsidiary of a prominent Swedish indie rock and electronica label hasn't done them in any harm in the popularity stakes. But it's not some cynical ploy on their behalf - they grew up loving jazz and rock, so it's natural for them. And thank the lord they're nothing like the novelty, hey we're a piano trio playing polite versions of Nirvana pish you get from the Bad Plus. They're one of the most exciting live acts I've seen in any genre and if they get rock fans checking out jazz then great.

Three men and a dog at Oto? I've seen great crowds there for Brotzmann, Joe McPhee and others, and I'm sure the likes of The Arkestra, David S Ware et al wouldn't play regular residencies there if they weren't getting crowds. A lot of European and British improv is quite quiet, fidgety and cerebral - which is fine - but The Thing stand out in the scene for having an energy and power you'd more readily associate with the Americans.

Anyway, the album with Neneh is great, particularly on the quieter pieces. Gustafsson's wild man image belies his subtlety and range. Paal Nilsson Love is on stunning form too: the Ethiopian rhythms coming in on Accordian and the pulse and roll stuff he does on the Ornette tune are particularly wonderful.

Anyone catching them on tour? I'll need to grab my tickets for London.

Going to the London gig. I bought a ticket for a friend who was very into Buffalo Style and Raw Like Sushi. Thinking should I let her know about the the new direction?

oh idk most people i know who were into those are into this

like, why have some of the free jazz shows i've seen at cafe oto been attended by three men and dog, but then suddenly these mythical free jazz hipsters turn out in their hundreds when the thing - a group that has received 'no notice' in the uk - play there?

good w.o.m. in dog circles obv

well that was kind of my point. why do the thing attract larger audiences than other free jazz bands? it's not because they're better. sadly, i think it's because they have this cachet of cool.

welllll, as stew suggests, they're more accessible than most free jazz because they have that more rock aspect to them. i don't think there needs to be a dalston conspiracy behind a band who are more accessible than other bands also being more popular than those other bands.

sadly, i think it's because they have this cachet of cool.

yaah no jazz musicians have ever had a 'cachet of cool' before

points taken, possibly a more interesting question then would be why it is that The Thing have only started being feted in the UK in the last couple of years when they have been playing all over mainland Europe since at least 2005

i just don't share yr perception that the thing went from being ignored in the uk to trendoid accessory in the last cpl of years. as crackle and stew have pointed out, gustaffson's name and reputation have always meant SOMETHING here, amongst the v v small number of ppl actually interested in this stuff, and I definitely remember the early albs getting gd reviews in the usual places (the wire, most obviously.) maybe the thing's popularity/visibility has grown in the last cpl of years (as you might expect after recording a rec w/ neneh cherry) but you cld also just put that down to them being a really really exciting group of performers who have, over time, generated great word of mouth and a slowly increasing following. w/out neneh cherry i'm p sure they'd still struggle to 'sell out' a venue much larger than Cafe Oto, because pop/rock cover version aside, they are still playing a p fierce and uncompromised form of music that has always alienated many more ppl than it has ever attracted. Personally I hope they have a number one album and sell out the 02 Arena.

Also, when did they first play live in the UK? My memory is that they didn't tour here for a while, and I only got to see them for the first time last year. i was living in London at the time of their first albs and am sure I would've gone to see them at the Vortex or wherever if they had played here then.

HOLY SHIT LOVE THE NEW ONE

Hey, people who like this might also like Mats Gustafsson's release with Kieran Hebden from last year Live at the South Bank
It's bananas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-xxzCurgR0

and pardon the omission, Steve Reid

man before i was excited for this in a "kinda weird/cool/interesting that this is happening" way, but this is fucking great

yep.

really surprised there hasn't been more talk about this album

I love this album to bits but it's the kind of release where I might say inadvertently stupid things if I talked about it in depth.

haha yeah trying to review it paralysed me a bit. best policy was transparency really, "i know nothing about the thing or free jazz or don cherry or any of the originals but here is why i like it"

and i DO know about neneh

I was listening to this at the end of my work day yesterday and all I kept thinking was "...baller!"

wait she covers Suicide and the Stooges on this? I need to check this out.

seriously this album is a uniter, not a divider. lots of different people will like it. (imo the thing turns everything to noisy gold)