Butterfly’s Drunk Off Cherrywine by Knowfrillz I have been hearing “about” Ishmael Butler’s (aka Butterfly from the group Digable Planets) current musical project for about the past 3-4 years.  However, I had never actually heard the music.  I remember one article stating the name of the album was going to include his government name interwoven into the title, but that has since changed.  What has come to fruition is the hip-hop band Cherrywine led by Mr. Butler on vocals and lead guitar.  I was fortunate enough to catch a live performance of the collective recently, as well as listening to the debut album “Bright Black.”  The verdict is as follows.

The band consisted of 3 members, which included Ishmael on lead vocals and lead guitar, Gerald "Tugboat" Turner on bass guitar and background vocals, and Bubba Jones on drums. Their very fusion-oriented brand of hip-hop, while sounding somewhat unique, is not very pleasing to the ear and can sometimes borderline on being boring. The performance itself was good, but not great, which is probably the most accurate way to describe all aspects of the band and its music.

Some of the more memorable tracks are "What I'm Talking," which they opened their set with and is an up-tempo and catchy composition. This song is the perfect introduction to the Cherrywine sound. "Anchorman Blues" is a simplistic bounce track where Ish explains the need for deception in the male species. "Dazzlement" is the most boom-bap-hip-hop composition, which is probably the main reason why it is my personal favorite. And the funky-soulful sound of "Sleep Pretty Girl" makes it one worth listening to.

On the flip side, most of the other tracks were pretty forgettable and uninteresting. "Gracefully" sounds very primitive in both lyricism and production. "See For Miles" has a hednodder musical bed, but suffers from an unimpressive hook. On "So Glad For Today", "Girlcrazy" and "American Drip," the band unsuccessfully attempts to fuse it's brand of hip-hop with elements of Southern Bounce, New Wave and Drum & Bass and ends up creating very dissonant sounding musical compositions. And on the final track, "All I Can Do," Ish clearly demonstrates that he made the correct decision in choosing to become and MC instead of a singer.

Overall, both the live performance and the album left me very indifferent. They were both good, but not great. Ish is a decent frontman, and certainly had the attention of a number of female audience members throughout the performance, and it was not because of the music he was playing. If I were to be brutally honest, I would say this is music for people on some sort of mind-altering substance. And it seems as though Ish has gone the direction of making "his" vision of music which is very commendable. The only problem is that I do not believe there will be very many listeners who will be able to see and understand that same vision. I really hope I am wrong.

Knowfrillz.