Minus The Cheeba

08/02/2000 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Jon Young

"It's the standard Behind the Music story that applies to every band," says Paul Godfrey of Britain's Morcheeba. "Too-big egos, not enough money."

Adds brother Ross, "We were so stressed after our last tour that we had to separate for a while."

But this cautionary pop-music tale has the expected happy twist. After a year licking their wounds and cultivating newly positive attitudes, Morcheeba have regrouped for their most engaging album yet. Again featuring the sweetly elegant vocals of Skye Edwards, Fragments Of Freedom stretches the trio's trademark trip-hop sound, with Ross (the bluesy guitar and keyboard dude) and Paul (the beat architect) incorporating lots of good old soul and funk, '70s-style, a cool Biz Markie rap, and even a bit of sparkling steel drums. Like the Beach Boys' classics in their time, "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day," "Be Yourself," and "Love Is Rare" are perfect summer songs: smart, breezy, and full of feeling, wonderful background music that also rewards close listening.

Morcheeba ("middle of the road," plus slang for marijuana) haven't been around long enough to compile an epic saga, but they've already endured their fair share of ups and downs. The group came together in the mid-'90s, when the Godfrey brothers teamed up with Edwards. "When we first met Skye, she just sang to herself," Paul recalls. Admits Edwards, who admired such legendary divas as Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, "I was kinda shy. I didn't have big ambitions to be a singer."

Despite an obvious shortage of star quality--in conversation, all three still seem surprised to be the object of attention--Morcheeba caught on, with their debut album Who Can You Trust? finding an audience in the clubs and building from there. Observes Paul, "When Trust came out, nobody at the record company had any hopes for us. We thought it would sell maybe 50,000, and it ended up selling over half a million worldwide."

Following with the even more subdued Big Calm, Morcheeba became known for spacey, downbeat grooves. "We were expected to be depressed, reflective, and moody," Paul notes, with a hint of distaste. That melancholy aura had more than a little to do with their leisure activities. "When we were on welfare, before we had a record deal, we couldn't afford to buy drugs," Paul recounts. "Then, when we got a deal, the feeling was, 'I can buy any drugs I want.' It took a couple of years to get bored with that, but for a while all our friends were drug dealers."

The sunnier, livelier feel of Fragments Of Freedom stems at least in part from Morcheeba's reduced intake of substances. "We used to drink and smoke a lot to blot out our feelings, but this time we wanted to harness our emotional energy," Paul murmurs. "It's easy to be weird. It's a lot more difficult to be direct. Some people say Fragments Of Freedom is a more commercial record, but to me it's more experimental, because we're pushing our boundaries. We were defined by our club credibility before, which really annoyed me."

Ross adds, "It would be easy to stay underground. It's more of a challenge to make good pop music. We tried a lot of things on this album that we were too stoned or too lazy to do the last time. Instead of psychedelic layering, we left open spaces so you can hear the syncopation of the guitar and keyboards."

"We were influenced by Stevie Wonder," notes Paul. "His music is so ridiculously happy," Ross chimes in. "We thought about calling the album Mindless Happiness--not drug-influenced happiness, just the euphoria you get from a peak experience."

Elsewhere, Morcheeba also tip a collective hat to Chic ("Love Is Rare") and the Isley Brothers ("Shallow End"), so they're obviously onto a good thing. And they intend to hang on to their positive vibe. No more touring to the point of burnout, says Ross, noting, "We're not the sort of people who take to the spotlight too well."

He continues, "Our career has built slowly, which is really rare. We've been allowed to develop in our own time. All bands should be allowed to work that way. We have friends under huge pressure at major labels because a couple of million pounds were spent on their first album. If there was a sudden boom in our popularity, it would upset the flow. It'd be nice to stay on this slow grade."

Weirdly enough, he sounds like he means it.