Head Up High - CD

Morcheeba: Head Up High DIGI version on CD in digipack edition. This particular edition was published in Europe in publishing company [PIAS] Recordings in cooperation with G&G Records on 20. June 2025.

It's not hard to trace the footprints Morcheeba has left on the music scene over the past 18 years after becoming the forerunner of trip-hop with their debut 'Who Can You Trust? The journey that brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey embarked on from the south of England with singer Skye Edwards to eventually play to tens of thousands of people in China and South America. Of their seven successful albums, Paul Godfrey recalls the second, "Big Calm," in particular. "A lot of people saw it almost as a religious work," he recalls, "I can't remember how often people confided in me that they had made it through a bleak situation with this music. It would be easy to be cynical about it today - but frankly, it was the same for us." This perhaps truly healing effect of Morcheeba's music can be attributed to the trio's new album. For 'Head Up High', Ross returned to England from his Californian exile as a film composer; his brother Paul, after a diagnosis of diabetes, "was able to feel, even through music, as if I had just emerged from the danger of settling into a long-standing depression that had become a habit for me". Especially because he had never been so close to singer Skye: "I have a huge amount of respect for her. She made three solo albums during the band's breakup and now she's obviously brought that experience to our project." Much of that can be heard on "Head Up High," the band's most balanced and surprising album. "We've been experimenting in musical areas," says Ross, "that we've never delved into before. But at the same time, it felt like we were putting on a comfortable sweater, because just working together almost gave us a sense of home." On "Head Up High," for example, Ross often plays lap steel guitar, the sounds of Peruvian charango can be heard, and deep dub sounds can also be heard. "That's one of the good things about it," says Paul, "that the young people like and play all this dirty, nasty stuff: Instead of being a cynical old man, I understand their preferences and imagine I'm not too old for this business." Several guests are also once again bathing in the musical fountain of youth with Morcheeba. One of them is Ana Tijoux, Jim Kelly and Jurassic 5`s Chali 2Na join in on the ominous and edgy "Release Me Now", with Jordan and Harley from the Rizzle Kings rounding out the guest list. This represents more than just a few fans from the hip hop camp, however, as White Denim guitarist James Petralli also contributes his soulful blues melodies before Ross almost recalls Jimi Hendrix on "Call It Love." Meanwhile, Paul wrote the relevant lyrics in an unusual way: 'I took valuable phrases from my favourite books, threw them in a bag and mixed them together. Then I dumped out the bag and put together what I could fit in it. It was a new, novel way, because it's hard to reinvent the wheel in English. No matter how flexible it seems in the end." Morcheeba has never been a band eager to rest on its laurels for long. "We just need to feel," says Paul, "that we're moving forward and making progress. The only thing we want to achieve with the new album is this: To knock the breath out of old fans and win new ones." Ambitions that are more than fulfilled with "Head Up High". Review , "Probably the longest-running trip-hop band on the scene (they've been around since 1995) gives their sound a new, colorful twist that incorporates soul, blues and rock." (Audio, November 2013) , "At its core, then, Head Up High is a self-conscious redefinition of a seminal '90s band." (Stereo Play, November 2013)

Album spans genres Electronic, Downtempo and Trip Hop. Digipack.