Cherry WIne - Bright Black
Cherry Wine
Bright Black
Dcide/Babygrande Records 2003
Cherry Wine - vocals, guitar
Thaddeus Turrner - guitar, voice, talkbox, keys
Gerald Tugboat Turner - bass, vocals
Bubba Jones - guitar, keys, vocals
Back in the first half of the 1990s a great hip-group made 2 unflinchingly great hip-hop albums, and then hipped and hopped their way into oblivion. They were Digable Planets. By 1996 they were no more and the 3 core members largely went the way of obscuram. Since 2003 however, a single here and there and rumours of solo releases have popped up. This is the first one I could find, and it was by then-named Butterfly (there was also LadyBug and Doodlebug), now named Cherry Wine (real name Ishmael Butler), and boy what a disappointment.
There have been rumors that his live shows are actually fairly lively, inventive affairs, but you would not get that impression from listening to the album Bright Black. What few great riffs and flows there are end up being bookended with third tier neo-soulogisms and undercooked funk. The multi guitar dynamic has so much potential but is weakened by insufficiently hefty drum parts (all very tinny samples and programmed with very little variation) and bass that seems to drop out too often. There seems to be an attempt to marry the jazziness of 70s era Miles with more modern hip-hop, but it jut never comes together. No one here is Pete Cosey, and as far as making the rap-fusion mix work, the only success so far has been Mos-Def's The New Danger (and he was smart enough to get a band of comperable players covering all the bases). There is a brief moment when he seems to be delving into the abstract weirdness of early Divine Styler on See For Miles and his Prince Black Album knock off Sleep Pretty Girl falls over itself trying to be a 3 minute come on to whichever groupie seems most convenient.
I can certainly see where some of the guitar vamps, along with a live drummer and less thin band sound, along with a more relaxed Cherry Wine might make for a great evening show at the local vibe-lounge. But Bright Black does not giev one that immediate impression on its own.
Bright Black
Dcide/Babygrande Records 2003
Cherry Wine - vocals, guitar
Thaddeus Turrner - guitar, voice, talkbox, keys
Gerald Tugboat Turner - bass, vocals
Bubba Jones - guitar, keys, vocals
Back in the first half of the 1990s a great hip-group made 2 unflinchingly great hip-hop albums, and then hipped and hopped their way into oblivion. They were Digable Planets. By 1996 they were no more and the 3 core members largely went the way of obscuram. Since 2003 however, a single here and there and rumours of solo releases have popped up. This is the first one I could find, and it was by then-named Butterfly (there was also LadyBug and Doodlebug), now named Cherry Wine (real name Ishmael Butler), and boy what a disappointment.
There have been rumors that his live shows are actually fairly lively, inventive affairs, but you would not get that impression from listening to the album Bright Black. What few great riffs and flows there are end up being bookended with third tier neo-soulogisms and undercooked funk. The multi guitar dynamic has so much potential but is weakened by insufficiently hefty drum parts (all very tinny samples and programmed with very little variation) and bass that seems to drop out too often. There seems to be an attempt to marry the jazziness of 70s era Miles with more modern hip-hop, but it jut never comes together. No one here is Pete Cosey, and as far as making the rap-fusion mix work, the only success so far has been Mos-Def's The New Danger (and he was smart enough to get a band of comperable players covering all the bases). There is a brief moment when he seems to be delving into the abstract weirdness of early Divine Styler on See For Miles and his Prince Black Album knock off Sleep Pretty Girl falls over itself trying to be a 3 minute come on to whichever groupie seems most convenient.
I can certainly see where some of the guitar vamps, along with a live drummer and less thin band sound, along with a more relaxed Cherry Wine might make for a great evening show at the local vibe-lounge. But Bright Black does not giev one that immediate impression on its own.
posted by theloniusfunk at 3:48 AM
4 Comments:
Bravo, the ideal answer.
fuck you cherry wine was amazing, clean your mind!
fuck you it was great.
No it wasn't you tone deaf monkey-headed clitoral boil
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