Please talk about: "Buffalo Stance" by Neneh Cherry

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)

On the few occasions i wrote about jazz it was always a case of "I am an interloper in this idiom but here's why I like it, and oh boy do I like it a lot" generally.

yeah it's really good - i'm not crazy about the madvillain song though, ends up sounding like slam poetry due to the jazz backing. dream baby dream is fantastic though.

Feel like the lone dissenter here that I just couldn't finish the album.

But my hatred of Free Jazz is longstanding and goes so deep I can't get over it, even for Neneh Cherry.

Not crazy about free jazz, but I love Neneh and the new album is pretty interesting. I'd buy it if I could find it for a good price somewhere.

On a slightly related note, I never realized how much Madvillian's album resembled ODB's debut...

that's what happens when it goes a leeetle too far (and the concept starts to kinda fall apart/become threadbare for me as soon as that happens)
most of these songs have interesting arrangements though, i think. there are times when i wish the vocals were not there, though but i realize that i am prob in the minority here

loooove the end of dream baby dream -- awesome freakouts are what free jazz is about for me. i do appreciate that this is making the words "free jazz" more accessible to people too.

oops that was xp to n/a

ha i'm also coming from the side of generally liking free jazz freakouts (though not being a free jazz expert) and knowing almost nothing about neneh cherry

i kind of want to hear them cover a load more songs in this manner

Yeah, well I'm coming from a couple of decades of being super annoyed at free jazz wig-outs ruining my dronerock and my spacerock so I don't want to hear it in the context of a musical area I thought was free jazz wig-out free.

Free Jazz Wig-Out Free.

Things I hate myself for typing.

tbh, given Nenah Cherry's lineage I am surprised more of her music hasn't incorporated free jazz wigouts

that's what i like -- free jazz wig outs in my space rock! how funny. to each her own, eh :)

i would like to recommend this video -- the thing and joe mcphee "sounds like a sandwich" http://vimeo.com/44342292

and i have a bunch more recommendations but i have to find this cover of pj harvey's "who the fuck" first -- it's GREAT.

They also do a version of "Whole Lotta Love" with the Cato Salsa Experience on Sounds Like a Sandwich that is REALLY good.

Ok here it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixgFavxutys

Sorry for ruining this Neneh Cherry thread :(

(I wonder if we can find a "you got free jazz in my dronerock/spacerock/postrock" thread to continue discussion on because this has long been a source of perplexment to me.)

free jazz + dronerock - different 'means' (sometimes), same ends (ecstatic transportation/communion)

In theory, yes. But in practice, it often doesn't seem work that way at all.

But this is not the thread. I'm aware that I'm doing in this thread what I shout at others for doing and don't want to continue it here.

Holy Fuck. Did anyone else see this??

see what?

Sorry that made little sense. Neneh & The Thing surpassed all expectations last night. Definitely one of the best live things I've been to in a while. Rare for me to go to a gig and just not want it to end..

sad I missed this ;_;

Neneh had such a huge stage presence. Literally stalking the stage. Dressed in customised Adidas. Everything sounded so tight, I half expected The Thing to dominate but she had such control. The noise! The encore was just brilliant.

oh man! Wish I could have seen that. Sadly, not even coming to my continent. Glad it was amazing.

so is Buffalo Stance where the title of that Style Rookie blog came from?

They were at Pfork, I think? (I didn't go) I've seen The Thing a couple of times and those players in other ensembles a bunch of times -- all of them were really interesting and I won't go so far as to say 100% ALWAYS SPELLBINDING but there's always a lot going on and a lot to pay attention to.

Basically, if I've enjoyed practically every show I've ever seen those guys perform (Nilsson-Love, Gustafsson, Haker-Flaten have all been in a lot of other bands) Add Neneh Cherry stalking the stage, and I think the wider audience potential skyrockets.

(For reference - afaik they all came through Chicago a lot b/c of the Vandermark connection, Haker-Flaten lived/lives here too.)

aah.

p4k wasn't listed on her Facebook page, but that doesn't really mean anything.

Maybe they weren't there -- maybe I'm misremembering that

Either way -- those people used to (and still do) play around Chicago a lot, but there seems to be a next generation brewing since the last time I was really paying attention. My point was that The Thing are totally awesome.

the cherry thing is amazing, really delivers on pretty much every level.

i finally caught up w/the cherry thing last week, found it underwhelming but will play it more. on a car trip this weekend we played homebrew, first time since the 90s and it held up v well. our 16 y.o. son was intrigued by the stylistic blend asking "what do you call this?" dunno. trip-hop pop?