The term trip-hop, for those readers who are neither British nor constantly depressed, refers to a style of music consisting of mellow, bass-heavy hip-hop beats and vocals that ranging anywhere from soulful, sultry singing to rapping with emphasis on flow (depending on the group). Following in the footsteps of trip-hop pioneers like Massive Attack and Portishead, Morcheeba, who will appear at the 9:30 Club this coming Tuesday, stray towards the lighter, cheerier side of melancholy British downbeat music.
Formed in 1995 when brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey met vocalist Skye Edwards at a party in London, their debut album Who Can You Trust? appeared in 1996 and features such hits as “Trigger Hippie” and “Moog Island.” What differentiates the act from other similar-sounding artists is that Morcheeba was able to diversify its sound in order to avoid beating the trip-hop trademarks to death. This branching-out led to Big Calm, an album interesting for its diverse roots and influences—such as hip-hop, jazz, R&B and electronica. Unfortunately, it also led to some impressively unimpressive albums like Fragments of Freedom and Back to Mine which suffer from problems ranging from overproduction to unsuccessful experiments with different genres.
The group’s latest effort, Charango, is a return to form for the group, with a sound akin to earlier, more atmospheric efforts like Who Can You Trust? and Big Calm. The result is an album that, while breaking no new ground, does highlight the trio’s ability to create melodic and thoroughly laid-back trip-hop (or trip-pop). The album also features collaborations with a number of other artists, which they pull off to varying degrees of success. Pace Won, for example, raps on the title track, in addition to supplying some entirely unnecessary vocals for “Get Along.” The ridiculous “Women Lose Weight” features Slick Rick in a sordid tale of a frustrated man killing his fat wife in order to get with his secretary (living the American Dream, in other words), and adds little else to the album. But the group’s collaboration with Kurt Wagner of Lambchop on “What New York Couples Fight About” is one of the highpoints of the album, around which most of the rest of the mellow tracks flow nicely. The end result of all this sonic experimentation and collaboration with artists of different backgrounds is one of the group’s strongest albums to date.
So if life seems to be getting too serious, be sure to blow off some smoke and check out Morcheeba when they blaze into the 9:30 club this coming Tuesday. At a high point in their career and far from half-baked, Morcheeba will be on hand with its baggie full of beats to light up the audience with its pipe dreams of atmospheric and sultry trip-hop.
