The Art of Longevity Season 12, Episode 1: Morcheeba

The Art of Longevity

During our live interview with Skye Edwards and Ross Godfrey of Morcheeba, I found myself at one stage scrolling through my notes to find a description of the band’s sound I’d queried using Chat GPT. I couldn’t find it at the time but here is what it said:

“Morcheeba’s signature rich, mellow music became the soundtrack of the suburban homes and chillout rooms of the late 90s and early 00s”.

That’s a composite of much that has been written about the band over some 30 years, and it doesn’t really flatter does it? “The devil’s own lounge band” is the quip that Skye Edwards recalled from an early review. The music press loves to characterise bands, but in Morcheeba’s case, it comes across somewhat dumbed down. Contained within Morcheeba’s mellow sounds are multiple layers of influence that reveal hidden depths with every listen. The interview with the band for this launch episode for The Art of Longevity (Season 12!) manages to scratch just beneath the surface at least. That said, Morcheeba know their place in making music that can be the perfect backdrop, to quote Ross Godfrey:

“We’ve always made relaxing music. You can get home from work on a Friday night, have a glass of wine or smoke a spliff or whatever and play our music”.

On the other hand, the sheer depth of their musical influences and references can be breathtaking. Within the mix are Bacharach, Barry and Moriconi of course, but also Brazilian late 60s Tropicalia, and somewhat less obviously (but most certainly in terms of always impressive guitar work) classic rock from Ross Godfrey’s childhood favourites Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix. Meanwhile, Skye’s lyrics and styles include 70s country music, along with ska and dub reggae. All of this is somehow weaved into the seamless Morcheeba sound on the new outstanding album Escape The Chaos.

Launched in the mid-90s and quickly swept along on the British ‘trip-hop’ wave, Morcheeba outlasted most of their contemporaries including Portishead (who refused to heed to the repeated calls to re-form). Morcheeba is one of those bands you might easily have forgotten about. And yet the band has (give or take a short hiatus and shuffling of personnel sometime between 2003 and 2009) steadily worked their way to 11 albums over 30 years, most of it under the radar of music industry gatekeepers and without much love from the music press. “They hated us” was Skye Edward’s response when I brought up the subject of early press reviews. And yet, Pitchfork gave their debut album Who Can You Trust (1996) an 8.3/10, but then stopped loving them as the band’s popularity took off. Recent single We Live & Die references “in the old days of NME” which had me going on to Wayback Machine to dig out an NME review from 1998 of the breakthrough album Big Calm. It was the now legendary music critic Syvia Patterson, who wrote:

“Morcheeba you see, sounds nothing like Portishead. They sound like they like life”.

That has certainly proved a lasting observation. And Morcheeba has proved a lasting British trip hop institution. One of the few 90s bands that just seem to keep on getting better and better.

This live episode launches a new partnership between The Art of Longevity and Bang & Olufsen. Find more details on the Song Sommelier web pages.

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