TEAM RNS PRESENTS

ARTIST: Eagle Eye Cherry

TITLE: Sub Rosa

RIPPER: Team RNS

0hr 50min total- 72.7mb

RELEASE DATE: 2003-09-29

RIP DATE: 2003-08-30

04 It's Up To You                 3:39

05 Don't Give Up                  3:58

07 Feels So Right                 4:19

10 The Food Song                  4:19

11 If It Can't Be Found           4:55

12 If You Don't Know              5:05

There are artists who achieve success

and are satisfied to spend the rest of

their careers repeating the formula. And

there are those like Eagle-Eye Cherry

who seek to come up with something

creatively fresh each and every time.

Combining his most mature set of songs

to date with the most widescreen

production of his career, Cherry's third

album, Sub Rosa, finds him expanding

the boundaries of his artistry and

boldly challenging our preconceptions.

"I'd hesitate to say there's been a

master plan," he says. "But you can

definitely trace a journey through my

records. If there's a theme to Sub Rosa

it's asking 'what road are we going

down?' It's a cynical world and people

don't  want to be preached at. But

there are a lot of questions that need

to be asked right now."

Sub Rosa comes on the back of

Eagle-Eye's first real break in five

years, following the hectic schedule

that engulfed him after his 1998

breakthrough hit, "Save Tonight". The

time off gave him the opportunity to

take stock personally and to take a

look around at the much-changed world in

which we now live.

"I got back home in early 2002 and was

able to sort through a lot of stuff,"

he explains. "On the road you live in a

bubble and you have to put a lot of

things on the back-burner and decide to

deal with them later. I needed to take a

break and to clear out the closet."

The result is a collection of songs that

are still highly personal but are also

full of acute observation of the world

around us. "Quite a few of the songs

like 'Be Like That' and 'How Come'

touch on the question of where we're

headed," he says. "There's some despair

at what's happening in the world right

now. But there's optimism in there,

too. With a song like 'Don't Give Up', I

wanted to send out a message, like "Give

Peace A Chance". It's saying 'there's

always hope'. You can apply that in

different ways. It would be fun to

imagine a crowd at a soccer match

singing it when their team is losing,

Sub Rosa is also an album of stories,

peopled by interesting characters. "The

Strange", for example, was written one day

in New York, just sitting in Central

Park and people watching. "Skull

Tattoo" has a similar inspiration.

"People have asked me who the woman is

in that song," Eagle-Eye says. "But she

was just someone I saw on the street."

Then there is "Twisted Games", in which

the first verse is about a child who

becomes a pyromaniac and the second verse

is about a boy obsessed with guns. "I

like the idea of the songwriter as

storyteller. On a lot of these songs

I've stepped outside myself," he says.

The album was written both on the road

while touring Living In The Present

Future and in Cherrys New York

apartment. Inevitably the events of 11th

September 2001 and its aftermath -- a

world-changing drama that is still being

played out -- have coloured his

approach. "It's not an album about

that because many of the songs were

already in progress before then," he

explains. "But I was hit by the reality

of the world we live in. I was in Los

Angeles on that day and got stranded

there. The world is a very weird place

right now and of course that has

influenced me as a human being and as a

As we have come to expect from

Eagle-Eye Cherry, Sub Rosa brims with

memorable melodies and irresistible

hooks. But it also sounds subtly

different from anything we've heard

from him before. "I think I've kept the

songwriting focus," he says. "But I've

always been fascinated by technology and

sampling and I knew I wanted one day to

work in that vein. So on this record I

thought about the production a lot

more. In the past I found solace in

songwriting with simple parameters. This

time the sound is definitely bigger and

To assist in this process, he recruited

producer Al Stone (Bjrk and Jamiroquai).

On This Paralysis, Dont Give Up, and

The Food Song he also teamed up with

Cameron McVey, husband and producer of

his sister, Neneh Cherry, while Crashing

Down and Feels So Right were produced by

John Kurzweg (Jewel, Puddle of Mud,

Creed) and How Come was produced by Tim

Simenon (Massive Attack, Bjrk, Depeche

Mode).Yet he was also determined that

despite the bigger production, Sub Rosa

should maintain a spontaneous warmth.

Its got an organic base from demo-ing

the songs in my apartment, Eagle-Eye

explains. Things happen in that

environment that are very causal and

natural. With a laptop you can get them

down and a lot of that ended up on the

record. Then we built it up from there

in the studio and combined technology with

The title, too, reflects the records

roots. "Sub Rosa" -- 'under the rose'

-- is when something is said in secret;

behind closed doors; on the down low.

Sometimes when I listen to music,

especially on headphones, it can feel

like that... its just the music and me,"

Born in Sweden in 1971, while growing

up Eagle-Eye and older sister Neneh

Cherry spent months on the road with

their father, the trumpeter Don Cherry,

acquiring an early taste for tour buses

and the nomadic lifestyle of working

musicians. At the age of 12, he was

sent to school in New York, where he

stayed on to work as an actor and a

drummer in various bands. It was not

until 1996 that he returned to Sweden

to begin writing and making his debut

album, Desireless, at the relatively

A collection of highly personal

compositions, on its release in 1998,

Desireless announced the arrival of an

important new contemporary

singer-songwriter. "There was a certain

amount of therapy on that record and I

wanted to go back to basics and make

it simple with acoustic guitars and

stuff," he says. Propelled by the hit

single "Save Tonight", the album went

platinum all over the world.

The second album, 2000's Rick

Rubin-produced Living In The Present

Future was made on the back of his

phenomenal success and reflected the

speed at which his life was moving.

"We  finished up two and a half years

of touring and then without pausing for

breath went straight in the studio and

recorded more or less live. It was a

very spontaneous album." It repeated

the success of its predecessor. In

between came a guest appearance on

Santana's multi-Grammy winning,

multi-platinum album Supernatural.

Now comes Eagle-Eye Cherry's finest

album to date. "If you asked me on the

first two records who I'd like to be

compared to, I'd have said Neil Young or

Tom Petty," he admits.

"But if you asked me the same question on

this record, I'd have to say that I

don't know. That's exciting. I feel I

understand the craft of songwriting

much better now and I know what I want.

It's almost like the first two albums

were in mono -- and this one is in