It’s a well-known fact that Michael Jordan can do pretty much anything.  The man has won championships with both the University of North Carolina and six with the Chicago Bulls.  He’s probably the greatest player ever to play the game, no lie. (This is coming from a Boston Celtics fan.)  He has also led a strategic marketing campaign which made him one of the most recognizable faces in sports history.  He also took a crack at minor league baseball as well as acting.  Yes, the man can act and in 1996, he gave the world his stunning debut with the animated classic Space Jam.  By chance, MJ and the film inadvertently created a genre of music.  Yes… space jam.

English trip-hop/alternative rockers Morcheeba’s sixth and newest effort, Dive Deep, feels just like that, a jam in outer space.  Take the overall mood of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” borrow some pages from master music guru Damon Albarn and put together some incredible guest vocalists and you have yourself a pretty awesome album.  All of the songs are different, yet stitched together like musical squares on a quilt of sound.

The album opens with the single, “Enjoy The Ride” with Judie Tzuke on lead vocals and from the first five seconds, it has that hypnotic hook that’ll bury itself into eardrums faster than an earthworm into wet soil.  The overall sound of Dive Deep is very well produced.  Guest vocalists range from Korean-American rapper Cool Calm Pete, Norwegian singer/songwriter Thomas Dybdahl, up-and-coming French singer Manda and as previously mentioned before English singer Judie Tzuke.

The next few songs, “Riverbed”, “Thumbnails”, “Run Honey Run” and “Gained The World” all have different musical textures, but blend together well.  They have that rare quality in which they’re great and adaptable to many contrasting environments, whether it be running a 10k or sitting in the biggest LA-Z-Boy imaginable.

The highlight of this album definitely has to be “Blue Chair” with Judie Tzuke.  Her vocals are not only mind-blowing, but the somber melodies behind her strong vocals really paint a wonderful mood, even if the tone seems to represent a sense of loss.  The groups founders Paul & Ross Godfrey have done a nice job with their musical compositions as well as choosing a wide variety of guest vocalists.  This album is definitely one of these albums that’s big in the UK but not in the USA.  Either way, this album has some killer material that should not be overlooked.  MJ would be proud.

Lyrics:  B
Sound:  A
Instrumentation:  B
Vocals:  A
Overall:  B+

Order via [Amazon]

Check out:
“Enjoy the Ride”
“Blue Chair”

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Categories: Album Reviews
Tags: Morcheeba