Morcheeba: Fragments Of Freedom : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

"I'm through feeling deeply," sings Skye Edwards of Morcheeba coltishly as a disco pulse straight out of 1977 surges behind her. "Let's dive into the shallow end." And so it goes for the rest of Fragments of Freedom: After two gorgeously languid explorations of melancholic soul (1996's Who Can You Trust, 1998's Big Calm), the British trio jumps headfirst into rhythm-centered pop. Morcheeba emerge with a set of resolutely bubbly songs that link vintage funk to disco to hip-hop to slurpy blues. The refrains may be featherweight ("You and me were meant to be"), but the musical touches that surround "Love Is Rare" (particularly Ross Godfrey's arching slide-guitar leads) and the dream-cloud vocals of "World Looking In" are strong enough to carry even the tired clichTs - rarely has the shallow end sounded so richly appointed. With Fragments of Freedom, Morcheeba have stopped emulating the trippy underworld of Stevie Wonder's Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants and stepped into the blazing daylight of Hotter Than July.(RS 846)

TOM MOON