Eagle-Eye Cherry Is Back With 'Present/Future'

NEW YORK (AP) - Eagle-Eye Cherry's Present/Future, the MCA Records follow-up to his 1998 Sony Music debut Desireless, is scheduled for release on October 30. Cherry, the son of jazz trumpet legend Don Cherry and younger brother of singer Neneh Cherry, received a Grammy nomination for Desireless.

Cherry told that he made the move to MCA after Sony Music's Work Records closed its doors. "I didn't have a choice, really, on the level of the Work Group, which I was with under the Sony label. They folded. That was a phone call I do not remember very well," he said. "No, it was a sad thing. I really liked the Work Group a lot. They had some kind of falling out with Sony, and they folded the whole thing. It was kind of like a relationship, so I felt like the best thing I could do was start off from scratch and have a new label. I was lucky enough to have a lot of choices, and MCA definitely felt like the right thing."

Cherry's new effort is a reworked version of last year's U.K.-only release, Living In The Present Future. The singer-songwriter told that much of the album was finished more than two years ago, but the "business" of changing labels took up much of his time. "It was kind of a bummer in the sense that it slowed everything down a bit," he said. "A lot of this stuff was recorded a while ago, and we actually released the album in Europe already. It's just good to be getting on with it because I'm really happy with the album and it's kind of nice to get out there."

Present/Future features five new songs, including the first single, "Feels So Right." "Wishing It Was," the same version that originally appeared on Santana's 1999 smash, Supernatural, is also included on the set. Present/Future also contains Cherry's first released duet with his sister Neneh on the track, "Long Way Around."

The album was produced by Rick Rubin (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys), John Kurzweg (Creed, Jewel), and Adam Kviman (Cherry's 1998 hit single "Save Tonight"). Cherry's club tour in support of Present/Future kicks off October 18 at 400 Bar in Minneapolis.