Musical virtuoso Neneh Cherry recently announced that she’s returning with her first solo album in 16 years, Blank Project, due out Feb. 25 on Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound. The highly anticipated album is a collaboration with RocketNumberNine, produced by Four Tet and featuring an appearance by Robyn. For a taste of the upcoming release, Neneh has shared the title track, “Blank Project.”
The track sounds antsy and angry, with Neneh’s soulful voice saying “Too many times, you come crawling, say sorry too late.” Instrumentally, it’s pretty sparse—a lot of throbbing percussion and bass, along with a few little embellishments here and there in the form of bell chimes or a tambourine—so her lyrics really shine. They come off as a sort of spoken word poem, with lines like “I feel so small / I hate you I hate you, I love you I love you, I love it all.” The ten-track record is said to have been born out of a recent personal tragedy in Neneh’s life, and subsequently recorded and mixed over a short five-day period.
After a long career experimenting with elements of hip-hop, post-punk, and jazz (among other genres), this minimalist aesthetic presents a new side of Neneh. Listen to the new track below via Soundcloud:
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