Eighties art-pop badass, Neneh Cherry enters stage right in Camden’s Electric Ballroom, dancing and spitting guttural, animal shrieks. She is poised and deliberate, but at the same time displaying the same wild abandon she displayed on her 1989 debut, Raw Like Sushi. Hair flying as she dances around to lead single from 2014’s Blank Project, ‘Out of the Blue’ or bouncing up and down to the one-two club beat of ‘Weightless’, Neneh Cherry is an unstoppable force. Performing (almost) exclusively material from 2014’s Kieran Hebden-produced new album, with her relentless optimism, honeyed voice and some pretty feral dance moves, Neneh Cherry is most definitely a woman to be reckoned with.

Far from a retro rehash of her brash heyday, Blank Project album is as current as you would expect with Hebden on production and Grammy winning, Britney Spears-enthusiast Robyn guesting on vocals, combined with electronic power bros rocketnumbernine on drums and keys. The album is propeller-beat jazz/dance bedrock underneath snap-crackle vocals and one-two couplets. But although the dubby dance of Blank Project sounds aeons away from the brat-sass of Cherry’s earlier work, the same undercurrent still runs through it. Whether it’s the sinister, slow drawl of ‘Spit Three Times’ or the references to her menstrual cycle on that album’s title track (‘On the twenty-eighth day/He is my victim’), Cherry’s lyrics carry a power and urgency that is unmistakably her. Blank Project is new Neneh, and just like 2012’s collaboration with Scandi-jazz trio, The Thing, it sounds like a continuation of a style as well as a clean slate. There is still a distinctive Neneh Cherry running through her work for all the decades she’s been making music (four by the way, thanks for asking).

In an era when pop stars are accepting more of a commitment to feminism is necessary to effect a change, it’s sometimes nice to be reminded that women in popular music kicked ass a fair amount of time before Beyoncé performed at the VMAs. And to be honest the person to remind us that, is probably the woman who performed on Top Of The Pops in her third trimester, won a BRIT award and then melted it down to make herself some jewellery.

Halfway through the gig, Cherry exclaims, ‘Ok we’re going to get a bit old school now’ before getting changed onstage into hi-tops and launching into her 1989 hit, ‘Manchild’. One is struck by the realisation that the passing of time seems to not have any meaning for Neneh Cherry, a woman who took some time off to hang out with her kids and then got unapologetically back into music a decade later, just because that’s what people do. As the night ends, Cherry and the brothers Page return to the stage for an encore, and with her declamation ‘I’m 51 this year… this song is 25 years old’, the force that is Neneh Cherry performs an electronic, arpeggiated version of ‘Buffalo Stance’ to a rapturous crowd. And she does not give a fuck. Here’s to Neneh Cherry.

With four month's to go until Camden Town is overrun once more, the first wave of acts for this year’s Camden Rocks festival have been announced.
 
Taking over various venues in Camden Town on Saturday May 30, Camden Rocks welcomes Welsh post-hardcore legends Funeral For A Friend, Austin alt. rockers ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and Heavens Basement as three massive names for this year's event.

As a festival exclusive, Funeral For A Friend are planning something very special for fans. Frontman Matthew Davies says: “We’re thrilled to have been invited to play Camden Rocks. We’re looking forward to banging out three in your face sets across Camden during the day so make sure you’re in attendance as we’ll probably be mixing it up a fair bit!”

Renowned New York proto-punks The Dictators are joining the line-up alongside some of Britain's finest acts from the current crop of stellar rock, punk and metal acts, including Black Spiders, Dinosaur Pile-Up, Turbowolf, Feed The Rhino and God Damn.
 
Only 40 incredible acts have been announced and Camden Rocks still have over 200 more on the line-up for this year’s festivities. Now in its fourth year, Camden Rocks takes over the legendary venues, pubs and bars (Electric Ballroom, Underworld, Proud Camden, Barfly, Jazz Cafe, Dingwalls and more) in Camden Town and this year is set to be the biggest festival yet. 

Tickets are priced at £30 (plus booking fee) and are available now from the festival website.

The full list of bands announced so far: Funeral For A Friend, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Heavens Basement,  The Dictators, Black Spiders,Turbowolf, Lawnmower Deth, Dinosaur Pile Up, Feed The Rhino, Eureka Machines, Black Moth, Max Raptor, Martyr Defiled, God Damn, Rob Lynch,Cypher 16, Freeze The Atlantic, Attention Thieves, The One Hundred, The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, Samoans, LTNT, Lucie Barat & The Au Revoirs, The St Pierre Snake Invasion, Beasts, Kyshera, Hunter & The Bear, The Scaramanga Six, Protafield, Dead, Buffalo Summer, Monument, High Hopes,Death Remains, Oxygen Thief, The Wild Lies, The Amorettes, Buck & Evans, State Of Play, Reverted, Dirt, Stellify, The Fourfits and The Assist.