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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Morcheeba
Charango\r\n(Sire/Reprise)\r\n
By Adam Woodyard
“It ain’t gonna hurt now / If you open up your eyes,” sings vocalist Skye on an early track on Morcheeba’s latest, Charango. She goes on: “You’re making it worse now / Every time you criticize / I’m under your curse now / But I call it compromise / I thought that you were wise / But you were otherwise.”
Gosh, that’s sweet. Tell us, Ms. Skye, when that really nice boy broke up with you, was that during seventh grade or eighth? And why would I care?
Despite incredibly uninteresting and simplistic lyrics early on, Morcheeba’s fourth full-length can’t be entirely dismissed — even though it isn’t until the fourth track, “Sao Paulo,” that the music develops any sort of complexity or catchiness. Even then, however, Skye’s voice is like a thick fog — oddly beautiful but distracting from anything interesting that might be going on. It’s mostly when alternate vocalists are used — from Pace Won to Slick Rick to Morcheeba’s own rhythm section — that you can really concentrate on the music and let it get under your skin; and only then does the sound begin to evoke something cool, like the slow groove of a long walk through a foreign land at night or the drama of getting freaky with your lover.
Charango improves surprisingly as it goes on, with Skye’s voice finally getting around to complementing the music, as on “Public Displays of Affection.” The c.d. is musically adventurous but full of room for improvement.
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