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Take me back to the artRAVE, when I feel most alive and like myself.. Where I can be free with no boundaries or limitations. How I wish to relive this beautiful night. 🚀👽💫 #Venus #artRAVEPhoenix #Rocketnumber9 #MyQueen #TheGodessofloveherself #assisfamous #totheplanet

#myqueen #assisfamous #rocketnumber9 #artravephoenix #thegodessofloveherself #venus #totheplanet

We're clear for take off, muthafukas 🚀🌝🌎🌞 #nanoblock #spaceshuttle #apollo #tothemoon #rocketnumber9 (at BFC HQ)

#nanoblock #tothemoon #apollo #spaceshuttle #rocketnumber9

Neneh Cherry — Blank Project (Smalltown Supersound)

Cherry set herself up with a stance that was impossible to maintain, and some of her 1990s work has the awkwardness of a lot of that decade's attempts to span scenes. Her re-emergence has been low key in comparison. A project called CirKus played catch-up with the trip hop she pioneered. Her 2012 collaboration with The Thing was a revelation. They sicced skronk arrangements on unorthodox covers, rendering The Stooges and Madvillain into songbook standards from a fractured alternate history– free jazz from songs that were full of freedom already. The “Cherry Thing” benefited immensely from its uniform texture, with a small combo and veteran singer ranging as wide as they could without overdubs or extra instrumentation.

Blank Project builds on that experience. She collaborates with electronic producer Kieran Hebden and a live instrument duo called Rocketnumber9. They stay within a limited palette, despite the endless color Hebden has explored in the half-synthesized, half-live production of Four Tet. The backing is mostly confined to drum and bass, though not the break beats and squawk of d'n'b itself. The drums waver, with straight beatbox loosening into the swing of an acoustic kit. The bass is halfway between the big distoro Justice grooves that dominated the clubs circa 2007 and the muffled grind of a Steve Albini production. It's simultaneously punchy and hazy. Cherry often has the high end to herself. She carries impressive melodies, and dips into the conversational when catching her breath. The ingredients may be the post-punk, hip hop and jazz that she's always blended, but it's harder than ever to say the mix favors any of those in particular.

The record was recorded quickly, and the lyrics seem spontaneous, letting subconscious fears seep into the verses. About to cross into her 50s, letting go of vanities is a preoccupation. The title track as stunning as anything I've heard in this decade. Bass and tom-tom are chained into a single tank-tread rumble. Cherry creates a chorus out of fractured images that describe love and hate blending into ambivalence. Between the pounding and the rush of emotions, she fits the most awkward phrase imaginable: "does my ass look big in these new trousers." Not only does it not break the mood, it elevates it. She finds meter in the mundane fretting. Hebden sketches a few ringing sounds that make everything more ominous — the clank of a ship's bell that lags behind the beat, a cash register at the end of phrase. The last syllable of one line gets artificially down tuned to monster growl. These flashes of clear digital muddle the documentary soundscape. Life sags, aging drops you between two worlds, and Cherry stares straight into the fault line.

"Dossier" describes the trepidation of deciding to fall for pickup line. Techno searchlights flash as a girl describes the nervous energy of a first date. Vintage fly girl rap slips in and out of more modern sounds, which winds up the punch line of the final verse: it's all rumination, and they've been married for decades. There's a duet with Robyn over a basic disco that's as close as this album gets to overtly silly, though minor key changes tie it to the whole. This record has a lot of wit buried in its overcast sound.

There are so many things here that shouldn't mix, but the brute force of Cherry's personality smooths them. "Weightless" meditates on the hollow satisfactions of a shopping spree. A monotone noise rock riff drives the verse, but the turnaround is Stax/Tamla melody. It breaks down like a Sonic Youth track, but glides like radio pop. On "Everything" she's losing hearing, loosing vision. The hook is "good things come to those who wait.” So does frightening decay. Cherry has made one deep call to party.

Ben Donnelly