Morcheeba is magic. Originally comprised of vocalist Skye Edwards and writer-producer brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey, the British trio cast their initial spell twenty-five years ago with their debut album Who Can You Trust? (1996)—the potency of their musical alchemy was instantaneous.
Further demonstrating their power, Morcheeba charted a singular path forward through eight subsequent studio albums; it was across these projects that their swank trip-hop roots eventually fell away to reveal a broader combination of sonic elements functioning within their output. While these recordings confirmed Morcheeba’s commitment to excellence, a considerable portion of them manifested against a dual backdrop of changing public tastes and shifting interpersonal dynamics within the group.
Edwards would briefly depart the fold after Charango (2002) to pursue her own fascinating solo turns; this left the Godfreys to recruit Daisy Martey (of Noonday Underground renown) for The Antidote (2005) and an eclectic assortment of vocal talent for Dive Deep (2008)—both sets impressed.
When Blood Like Lemonade—Edwards’ homecoming—impacted in 2010 it seemed as if the chemistry between the original Morcheeba configuration had been restored until Paul Godfrey bowed out permanently in 2014. The remaining Godfrey (Ross) and Edwards moved forward as a duo to arrive at a new career pinnacle with their forthcoming tenth studio album Blackest Blue.
Ahead of its formal release on May 14th, the incomparable Skye Edwards was gracious enough to speak to me about Blackest Blue, her enduring connection to her friend and colleague Ross Godfrey, and that “lost” Morcheeba album from 2016.
Congratulations on Blackest Blue, it’s a triumph. Talk to me about how it feels to be here with this album—is it a milestone or does it still feel fresh to you?
It does feel really fresh for us. It’s exciting to come out with a new record that we’re just so proud of. We’ve taken a lot of time to do this record—it’s not like we don’t take time with the other records—but usually there’s other stuff going on. You’re touring, you're kind of coming to and from different countries, then you’ve got three months to come in and lay it down and you’re writing ideas on the go.
But, this time, obviously with all of our gigs being cancelled (because of the pandemic), we had months, and months, and months, and months ahead of us—so, it was like...right, actually, we can really take our time with this! There was no pressure of needing the record by this date, we’ve got a whole year when we didn’t know when we were going to be back on the road.
But it feels really good! We’ve had such a good response to the new videos and singles. A lot of the comments are like, “Morcheeba are back!,” but we never went anywhere guys! [Laughs]
Your previous effort Blaze Away (2018) felt very airy and light, but there was still a mercurial element present in its lyrics and song structuring. On Blackest Blue you both go to a tonally darker place in your words and music. Was this a conscious choice?
Lyrically, this is only my second time writing lead lyrics for Morcheeba because Paul Godfrey—who is no longer part of the group—was the main lyricist up until Blaze Away; that was the album he wasn’t a part of, so I had to take over on that front. And Blaze Away felt like a really positive, “Woo hoo! we’re back!” (record) with the name Morcheeba because we couldn’t use the name for a while.
Henry Law, who did some beats on Blaze Away, did do a couple for Blackest Blue—there is one song called “Cut My Heart Out” that has a similar feel, beat-wise, to “Never Undo” on Blaze Away. But now with Blackest Blue, it has taken us on a darker path—lyrically—and there have been a few family struggles along the way and that comes out in the music as well.
How has creating this album with the pandemic and all of the socio-political tumult affected Blackest Blue, if at all?
Not so much with the pandemic because I was kind of loving the time at home and it hadn’t really started to affect me until maybe a couple of months ago...when it’s kind of like, I’m bored now. But, in the early days it was like, “Wow, this is amazing!” I’m home. I’m sleeping in my own bed for a whole week and getting my sleep patterns normal again. [Laughs]
But I think Blackest Blue was more to do with family relationships. And then, of course, with the Black Lives Matter protests that kind of creeped in there as well on a song that we have on the record called “Falling Skies.”
How have you grown as a writer, singer and co-collaborator with Ross on this effort?
I’m always trying to push myself because I’m known as the voice, the voice, the voice and hardly is it ever the words, the lyrics, lyrics. And obviously I appreciate all of the compliments about my vocals, but I do want to also be recognized as a great lyricist. And then, with Ross, he pushes me to go there (as a writer), like with the song “Falling Skies.” We were witnessing the protesting on TV and then there was protesting happening here in the U.K.
But I didn’t want to come out and write an out-and-out song about what had happened to George Floyd, so it was kind of a roundabout way of writing about it—“Falling Skies” could be interpreted in many different ways, but that song in particular was about that. But I did have a little chat with Ross, “Should we go there? Because we aren’t known as a political band, writing songs in that way?” So, we touched on that (political) subject.
While some critics and listeners have tried to confine Morcheeba to the trip-hop label, you’ve really pushed at the borders of your sound to experiment without losing your signature style—how has that continued with Blackest Blue?
I guess “the main ingredients” really are my voice, Ross’ guitar and then the production. But this is the thing, I didn’t like being called “trip-hop” when we first came out. Even now, the word trip-hop feels dated because we were more than that. On the first album Who Can You Trust? there’s this track (“Col”) with a vocal and a string quartet and that’s not trip-hop! It’s classical music. [Laughs]
Ross says, “trip-hop is like an umbrella which we’re under, it means a lot of different things.” But it’s always hard (to describe)—when you meet somebody new—when they’ve never heard of Morcheeba before and it’s like, “What kind of music do you do?” I usually just write the name down and tell them to go and have a look and a listen and they can decide.
Morcheeba have never shied away from being functional as a studio act and a live act simultaneously. Can you talk about how Ross and you have accomplished this?
Maybe because the songs start on acoustic guitar or piano—I mean sometimes they do start with beats, but most of the songs start with an instrument; we write songs with verses and choruses. Both Ross and I also love touring and playing live—it’s really important for us to do what we do in the studio and then to be able to recreate it (live). Our love of performing, we always have that in the back of our minds when we’re writing and creating.
Some of the songs we play (live), you know the B.P.M. become faster...so “Blood Like Lemonade” becomes a little bit rockier. Then taking it to this different level in introducing the electronic element within the beats—before it was Paul that was more into hip-hop, samples and stuff like that. And the scratching. We don’t do that anymore, really, we don’t have any scratching on the Blackest Blue, although we almost did.
Morcheeba has cut quite a discography over two-and-a-half decades—what would you say is your most underrated or misunderstood project that you feel didn’t receive the attention it deserved?
Oh gosh! Well, it got the attention, maybe wrongly so, but Fragments of Freedom (2000). Because everyone was like “Shit! What happened to our chillout band? I thought they were a chillout band!” We came out with (the single) “Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day,” which, at the time, I didn’t get either. [Laughs]
So, we had Who Can You Trust? which was super, super mellow and then Big Calm (1998)—there were moments that were uptempo, but still mellow—but then we kind of turned into this funk band (with Fragments of Freedom) and were just slated by the U.K. press. We were called “the devil’s own lounge band” by NME or Melody Maker, or one of those two magazines, and we got zero out of five stars or something.
That’s a shame! I really like that record. Bands have to be allowed to grow and change. There are some great tunes on Fragments of Freedom like “Shallow End.”
That’s my favorite! I love “Shallow End.” Recording that was so much fun.
Talk to me about Skye | Ross (2016)—it’s a fantastic record that many fans consider to be the ninth Morcheeba album in that its release occurred between Head Up High (2013) and Blaze Away (2018). Do you feel the same way?
Yeah! That’s funny. I was just saying to Ross because we’ve just started rehearsing—we’re doing a session at this studio called RAK, so stay tuned for that because that’s going to be streamed in June—we were sort of thinking of which songs to add to the setlist. And I’m like, “Light of Gold” (from Skye | Ross), that’s gotta be in the setlist!”
We were going through this transitional period where, you know, Paul had left and we couldn’t use the name Morcheeba because it was still partly owned by Paul—there was a bit of a struggle there. So, we’re like, we can’t just not do anything, so we brought out this album, we didn’t know what to call it and ended up calling it Skye | Ross.
That was the start of our journey as just a duo. There are some really wonderful songs on there; songs about my fourth child that was born super, super early.
The dialogue around streaming and artist revenue—or lack thereof—has been active in the United States and most recently in the United Kingdom; what are your thoughts on streaming and its continued implications on music?
It was highlighted a few years ago when Pharrell brought out the song “Happy” and how many times—millions and trillions—it was streamed and how he got, like, only a couple of thousand quid from streaming. How they’re going to fix that...I don’t know.
Surely there is a way. And especially with the ability to tour...it is still in the balance, we’re hoping we can get back to touring because that’s how we earn our money now. There are beautiful fans that still do buy music, but not as many. Especially in some of the younger generation, it is all about streaming and YouTube. But we don’t really earn anything (from that), so that would be great if there was a way that could change, for sure.
Twenty-five years on from your debut Who Can You Trust?, how do you feel about the Morcheeba legacy and its endurance with record buyers today?
When you say twenty-five years, it blows my mind. Just recently I went back and had a look at our second ever gig—it’s on YouTube—we were on Jools Holland and we performed “Never An Easy Way.” Flash forward twenty-five years later and my son, he is 25, and he is our drummer! [Laughs]
It is amazing to still be going and to have even more of a love for music, creating songs, writing songs, touring—when we can get back to it—so, I just have to say a huge “thank you” to the people who continue to support us. I’m kind of speechless, really.
What are your five favorite albums of all-time?
Solid Air (1973) by John Martyn, that is one I would call a masterpiece from start to finish, every single song I just love—the way some of them blend into the next one. That’s kind of my number-one album to go to. Beyond that, oh God, I’d need time to think about that! There would have to be a Sade album in there for sure—which one...Stronger Than Pride (1988).
That’s my favorite Sade album too! Oh my God, I love that record.
[Laughs] That was the first Sade album that I got into and I kind of went back to listen to their older stuff. Then the next artist would be Shirley Bassey. I absolutely love Shirley Bassey. I mean, growing up, I had white foster parents, they were quite old; I came to them when they were in their late 40s, so it was kind of almost like having grandparents—in East London, we had just three channels on TV. And the sort of thing they loved watching was the Royal Variety Performance, where you’d have a number of artists come on and perform in front of the Queen, and Shirley Bassey was one of them.
I was just blown away by her firstly, because her name was Shirley like my birth name—it’s Shirley. So, seeing this woman with brown skin on the TV and her name was Shirley absolutely blew my mind and she had on these fabulous sparkly dresses! An album of hers I have on vinyl is called The Shirley Bassey Singles Album (1975) with “And I Love You So,” “Goldfinger”...she’s the only singer to have sung three Bond themes! She’s legendary.
She’s a force of nature!
Okay, that’s three! Another one, Nick Drake’s A Way to Blue: An Introduction to Nick Drake (1994)—it’s quite special, that’s how I got into John Martyn through Nick Drake. Last one—I’m gonna say when this call ends “I should've said that one!”—and I mean, I don’t know why, but Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill (1986) is coming to mind. Being a teenager, growing up, I was quite shy and wasn’t really rebellious in any way, but that was the album that my parents probably told me to turn down! [Laughs]
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