Brothers mixing up the mood; Morcheeba are at The Sage Gateshead tomorrow, reports Entertainment Editor GORDON BARR.

Byline: GORDON BARR 

MORCHEEBA have become the multi-million-selling darlings of downtempo over the past decade with their soul and countryinflected mood music.

Here is an outfit whose refusal to be categorised musically extends to their very set-up, being a group only in the loosest sense of the word.

On their first five albums they explored the gamut of contemporary alt. dance genres, pioneering a song based form of dance music that would soon become known as trip hop or chillout while collaborating with a variety of singers and musicians that posited Morcheeba as an eclectic and openminded collective.

That idea is made explicit on Dive Deep, their latest album. In 2008, Morcheeba have become a vehicle for the thoughts and experiments of brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey, with no fixed singer but rather a series of vocalists.

"A lot of them I contacted through MySpace," explains Paul. "They were all people who wanted to genuinely contribute something. This made the whole process extremely easy. The songs were mainly co-written with the guests spontaneously in the studio. I had an emotional template for the album and they picked it up and ran with it."

Those guests range from established names such as acclaimed singe song writer Judie Tzuke who Paul grew up listening to and has, he says "a natural sense of melody - her voice is unique and extremely soulful", to relative newcomers such as Thomas Dybdahl, rapper Cool Calm Pete and Manda, a French singer who contacted the Godfreys via My Space, admitting "it was her dream to sing with us".

"For me, this album is already a success," says Paul. "When I was listening to it come together I listened with my whole body. I could feel it bubble up from my calves through my gut and my chest and burst into ideas and moods we could channel. It turned out to be the depression-beating therapy I needed."

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