It's disengaging and pretty dastardly to experience a 48-year-old seething with fork-tongued menace of "liquor" as she drops the odd N-bomb and finally delivers that AIDS line although of course to even attempt to tackle the track in the first place is meritorious of attention of one form or another. Which is more than can be said for a flatulent take on fellow Tricky associate Martina Topley-Bird's Too Tough To Die. Straying only negligibly from its point of origin, to articulate with the terseness of a similarly snaked rasp to that previously suggested it epitomises the pointless cover. Indeed devoid of the electronic sonic permutations that conclude the original it's questionably markedly inferior even.
The same goes for a pretty wild take on Ornette Coleman's What Reason Could I Give and as the record begins to assimilate to a voyage of self-discovery, it feels all too personal to establish, let alone maintain a human connection either with original artists or imitators. Its pace practically stationary, it's a dreary end to a collection that begins quite promisingly: a fraught – and indeed solitary original – number by the name of Cashback initially sees Cherry whoop: "I think I'm built to last" although her vocally robust affirmations are soon chased away by a brass buzz that sounds like a swarm caught in a bugle. Here perhaps a little mismatched musically, her musings of "When you cash me, oh Cashback/ You spend me; you trash me casually", the crooner comparing herself with that immoderately modern phenomenon of withdrawing cash-back when stocking up on alimentary crap etc., are rather novel. Then as the frenzied drone subsides, it's that once-ubiquitous Suicide rework that unapologetically astounds, just as it did back in the rather more sultry climes of spring. A jazz fusion recording that could only conceivably be bettered were Seb Rochford featured behind the nicotine-singed skins, it discernibly stands out here. As it would, moreover, in any jazz café or kook-laden boho bar.
An odd 'Thing indeed and maybe one demanding an acquired taste. Like a glacier cherry perhaps...
