Blank Project is the first solo album released by
Neneh Cherry in eighteen years. However, when it came out earlier this year, it was immediately clear that although Cherry no longer resembles the young rapper of her hit single
Buffalo Stance, she hasn’t forgotten a trick.
Blank Project is a beautiful and acclaimed album that makes for easy listening while having both pleasant and unpleasant undertones. Cherry had chart successes in the late 1980s and early 1990s when she captured attention with her trailblazing sound. She has lost none of her fearlessness in the intervening years. She works with
RocketNumberNine, an electronics duo who provide hypermodern rhythms that are clearly influenced by jazz. Cherry’s greatest hit,
7 Seconds (recorded with Senegalese artist Youssou N’Dour), may have been twenty years ago, but on stage she sounds just as fresh as ever.
