Album: Neneh Cherry & The Thing, The Cherry Thing Smalltown (Supersound)

For most performers, a jazz album would be an excursion into uncharted waters; but for Neneh Cherry – daughter of free-jazz trumpeter Don Cherry – it's more of a return to her roots in the feisty Eighties punk-jazz outfit Rip, Rig + Panic.

She's accompanied here by Nordic jazz trio The Thing on material ranging from Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" to her father's "Golden Heart", where the understated mantra-like motif and rumbling undertow of percussion carries the shivering charm of Neneh's vocal. The languid double-bass groove of "Cashback" opens like a Guru jazz-rap piece but soars through Mats Gustafsson's rasping tenor solo, while his own "Sudden Moment" features unison sax/vocal passages between himself and Cherry.

Download: Cashback; Dream Baby Dream; Golden Heart